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Four Years Under Marse Robert 










































I 





























Drawn by Wm. L. Sheppard 


MARSE ROBERT 
























FOUR YEARS UNDER 
MARSE ROBERT 


BY 

ROBERT STILES 

Major of Artillery in the Army of Northern Virginia 


SECOND EDITION 
FIFTH THOUSAND 



NEW YORK AND WASHINGTON 

The Neale Publishing Company 
m c m i i i 

C.oyjj £• 


THE LIBRARY OF 
CONGRESS, 

Two Copies Received 

DEC 2$ <903 

Copyright Entry 

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CUSS 6V XXo. No. 

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Copyright, 1903, by Robert Stiles 


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CONTENTS 


CHAPTER I. Explanation of the Title—Scheme of the Work. 

CHAPTER II------ - Introductory Sketches. 

Ante-war History of the Author—The Fight for the “Speak¬ 
ership” in i860—Vallandigham, of Ohio—Richmond After the 
John Brown Raid—Whig and Democratic Conventions of Vir¬ 
ginia in i860. 25 


CHAPTER III. ----- From New York to Richmond. 

Quieting Down to the Study of Law in New York—Progress 
of the Revolution—Virginia’s Attempted Mediation—Firing on 
Sumter—Back to New Haven—A Remarkable Man and a 
Strange, Sad Story—Off for Dixie—In Richmond Again. 33 


CHAPTER IV. ------ From Civil to Military Life. 

Off for Manassas—First Glimpse of An Army and a Battle¬ 
field—The Richmond Howitzers—Intellectual Atmosphere of 
the Camp—Essential Spirit of the Southern Volunteer. 44 








X 


CONTENTS 


CHAPTER V. Field Artillery in the Army of Northern Virginia. 

Inadequacy of General Equipment—Formation During First 
Two Years—High Character of Men Accounted For—An Ex¬ 
traordinary Story. 5 2 


CHAPTER VI.. From Manassas to Leesburg. 

March and Counter-march—Longstreet and Prince Napoleon 
—Leesburg—The Battle—The Mississippians—D. H. Hill— 

Fort Johnston. 59 


CHAPTER VII.. The Peninsula Campaign. 

Reenlistment and Reorganization in the Spring of ’62—Gen. 
McClellan—The Peninsula Lines—The Texans—The Battle of 
Williamsburg—The Mud. 73 


CHAPTER VIII. - Seven Pines and the Seven Days' Battles. 

Joseph E. Johnston—The Change of Commanders—Lee’s 
Plan of the Seven Days’ Battles—Rainsford—The Pursuit— 
Playing at Lost Ball—“Little Mac’s Lost the Thrigger”— 
Early Dawn on a Battle-field—Lee and Jackson. 87 


CHAPTER IX. Malvern Hill and the Effect of the Seven Days' 

Battles. 

Not a Confederate Victory—The Federal Artillery Fire—De¬ 
moralization of Lee’s Army—“McClellan Will Be Gone by Day¬ 
light”—The Weight of Lee’s Sword—Stuart—Pelham—Pegram 
—“Extra Billy”—To Battle in a Trotting Sulky—The Standard 
of Courage. 101 








CONTENTS 


XI 


CHAPTER X. - Second Manassas—Sharpsburg—Fredericksburg. 

Not at Second Manassas or Sharpsburg—A Glimpse of Rich¬ 
mond in the Summer of ’62—Col. Willis, of the Twelfth Geor¬ 
gia—Jackson in the Railroad Cut at Manassas—Sharpsburg the 
Hardest Fought of Lee’s Battles, Fredericksburg the Easiest 
Won—The Mississippi Brigade Entertains a Baby—A Con¬ 
script’s First Fight—Magnificent Spectacle When Fog Cur¬ 
tain Rose—Aurora Borealis at Close of the Drama.118 


CHAPTER XI. .Religious Life of Lee’s Army. 

Revival in Barksdale’s Brigade at Fredericksburg—A Model 
Chaplain—Personal Conferences with Comrades—A Prayer Be¬ 
tween the Lines—A Percussion Shell at Gettysburg. 138 


CHAPTER XII. Between Fredericksburg and Chancellorsville. 

Our Mother and Sisters Arrive From the North—A Horse’s 
Instinct of Locality and Direction—Our Artillery Battalion and 
Its Commander—Commerce Across the Rappahannock—Snow¬ 
ball Battles—A Commission in Engineer Troops— An Appoint¬ 
ment on Jackson’s Staff—Characteristic Interview Between Gen¬ 
eral Jackson and My Father—The Army Telegraph—President 
Lincoln’s Letter—Hooker’s Plan Really Great, But Lee’s Audac¬ 
ity and His Army Equal to Any Crisis—Head of Column, to the 
Left or to the Right. 152 


CHAPTER XIII.. Chancellorsville. 

On the March—The Light Division Passes Our Guns—Marse 
Robert Passes the Light Division—The Two Little Dogs of the 
Battalion—Two of Our Guns Take Chancellorsville in Reverse 
—Interview with General McLaws—Entire Regiment from New 
Haven, Conn., Captured—Brother William and Marse Robert— 






Xll 


CONTENTS 


Sedgwick—Hooker—His Battle Orders—His Compliment to 
Lee’s Army—Lee’s Order Announcing Jackson’s Death. 168 


CHAPTER XIV. - From the Rappahannock to the Potomac. 

The Engineer Troops—Jubal Early—His Ability and Devo¬ 
tion—His Caustic Tongue—Lee a Master of the “Offensive De¬ 
fensive”—His Army Organized into Three Corps—He Turns 
Northward and Maneuvers Hooker Out of His Position on the 
Rappahannock—The Battle of Winchester—Fine Work—Large 
Captures—Scenes and Incidents of the Battle. 183 


CHAPTER XV.. - In Pennsylvania. 

Impressing Horses the Only Plundering Lee’s Army Did—A 
Remarkable Interview with An Old Lady in a Pennsylvania 
Town—She Expects to Meet Stonewall Jackson in Heaven— 
Two Pennsylvania Boys Make Friends with the Rebels—“Extra 
Billy” Leads the Confederate Column into York, His Brigade 
Band Playing “Yankee Doodle,” and Makes a Speech on the 
Public Green—“Old Jube” Breaks Up the Meeting—“Dick” 
Ewell and the Burghers of Carlisle. 199 


CHAPTER XVI. - . Gettysburg. 

Lee Without His Cavalry—The Battle, When and Where 
Fought, An Accident—The Army of Northern Virginia in 
Splendid Condition—Gordon on Black Auster—A Fistic En¬ 
counter at the Crisis of the Great Battle—“Limber to the Rear” 

•—A Great Disappointment—A Desperate Ride— Dead Enemies 
More to Be Dreaded Than Living Ones—The Dutch Woman’s 
Ankles . 207 








CONTENTS 


Xlll 


CHAPTER XVII. - Between Gettysburg and the Wilderness. 

Lee Orders His Generals of Division to Report the Condition 
of Their Troops—McLaws Makes the Rounds of His Division— 
Back in the Old Dominion—Tuck and Marse Robert, Dragon 
and Logan—Meade an Able and Wary Opponent—The Homes 
of the People Within the Lines of the Army—A Preacher-Cap¬ 
tain Metes Out Stern and Speedy Justice—Lee Smarting Under 
the Tete-de-pont Disaster—Pegram Meets Two of His Old 
Troopers—Mine Run—Mickey Free and the Persimmons— 
Horses Under Artillery Fire—Two Important Movements of the 
Federal Forces. 222 


CHAPTER XVIII. - Campaign of ’64— the Wilderness. 

Grant—His Rough Chivalry—His Imperturbable Grit—His 
Theory of Attrition—Its Effect Upon the Spirit of Lee’s Army 
—An Artilleryman of that Army in Campaign Trim—Sundown 
Prayer-meetings—The Wilderness an Infantry Fight—A Cup 
of Coffee With Gen. Ewell in the Forest—Ewell and Jackson— 
Longstreet Struck Down.238 


CHAPTER XIX.. Spottsylvania. 

Death of a Gallant Boy—Mickey Free Hard to Kill—The 10th 
and 12th of May—Handsome Conduct of the “Napoleon Sec¬ 
tion” of the Howitzers—Frying Pan as Sword and Banner— 
Prayer with a Dying Federal Soldier—“Trot Out Your Deaf 
Man and Your Old Doctor”—The Base of the Bloody Angle— 

The Musketry Fire—Majestic Equipoise of Marse Robert. 249 


CHAPTER XX. - From Spottsylvania to Cold Harbor. 

Another Slide to the East, and Another, and Another—The 
Armies Straining Like Two Coursers, Side by Side, for the Next 






XIV 


CONTENTS 


Goal—Grant Waiting for Reinforcements—Lee Seriously Indis¬ 
posed—One of His Three Corps Commanders Disabled by 
Wounds, Another by Sickness—Mickey and the Children—“It 
Beats a Furlough Hollow”—A Baby in Battle—Death of Law¬ 
rence M. Keitt and Demoralization of His Command—Splen¬ 
did Service of Lieut. Robt. Falligant, of Georgia, with a Single 
Gun—Hot Fighting the Evening of June ist—Building Roads 
and Bridges and Getting Ready June 2d—Removal of Falligant’s 
Lone Gun at Night. 266 


CHAPTER XXL. Cold Harbor of ’64. 

The Great Fight of June 3d—Unparalleled in Brevity, in 
Slaughter, and in Disproportion of Loss—Grant Assaults in 
Column, or in Mass—His Troops Refuse to Renew the Attack 
—Effect at the North—Confederate “Works” in the Campaign 
of ’64—The Lines—Sharpshooting—The Covered Way—The 
Spring—Death of Captain McCarthy, of the Howitzers—How 
It Occurred on the Lines—How It Was Received in the City— 

My Brother Loses An Eye—“Alone in the World”—A last Look 
at the Enemy—Buildings Felled and Scattered by Artillery— 

Gun Wheels Cut Down by Musketry—Bronze Guns Splotched 
and Pitted Like Smallpox—Epitome of the Campaign of '64— 
Maneuvering of No Avail Against Lee’s Army—Did That Army 
Make Lee, or Lee That Army?. 285 


CHAPTER XXII. From Cold Harbor to Evacuation of Richmond 
and Petersburg. 

Grant’s Change of Base—Petersburg Proves to Be His Imme¬ 
diate Objective—Lee Just in Time to Prevent the Capture of the 
City—Our Battalion Stationed First in the Petersburg Lines, 
Then Between the James and the Appomattox—The Writer 
Commissioned Major of Artillery and Ordered to Chaffin’s 
Bluff—The Battalion There Greatly Demoralized—Measures 





CONTENTS 


XV 


Adopted to Tone It Up—Rapid Downward Trend of the Con¬ 
federacy—“A Kid of the Goats” Gives a Lesson in Pluck.307 


CHAPTER XXIII. The Retreat from Chaffin's Bluff to Sailor's 

Creek. 

On the Works, Sunday Evening, April 2d, ’65, Listening to 
the Receding Fire at Petersburg—Evening Service with the 
Men Interrupted by the Order to Evacuate the Lines—Explo¬ 
sions of the Magazines of the Land Batteries and Iron-Clads— 

A Soldier’s Wife Sends Her Husband Word to Desert, But 
Recalls the Message—Marching, Halting, Marching, Day after 
Day, Night After Night—Lack of Food, Lack of Rest, Lack of 
Sleep—Many Drop by the Wayside, Others Lose Self-control 
and Fire into Each Other—In the Bloody Fight of the 6th at 
Sailor’s Creek, the Battalion Redeems Itself, Goes Down with 
Flying Colors, and Is Complimented on the Field by General 
Ewell, After He and All Who Are Left of Us Are Prisoners 
of War. 320 


CHAPTER XXIV. Fatal Mistake of the Confederate Military 

Authorities. 

The Love of Glory the Inspiration of the Soldier—Prompt 
Promotion the Life of an Army—How Napoleon Applied These 
Principles—How the Controlling Military Authorities of the 
Confederacy Ignored Them—The Material of the Confederate 
Armies Superb, Their Development as Soldiers Neglected— 
Decoration for Gallantry, and Promotion on the Field Unknown 
in the Confederate Service—Lee Himself Without Authority to 
Confer Such Promotion or Distinction—Contrasted Spirit and 
Practice of the Federal Authorities and Armies—Grotesque 
Absurdity of an Elective Roll of Military Honor. 336 





XVI 


CONTENTS 


CHAPTER XXV. --------- Potpourri. 

Startling Figures as to the Numbers and Losses of the Fed¬ 
eral Armies During the War—Demoralizing Influence of Earth¬ 
works—Attrition and Starvation—Lack of Sleep vs. Lack of 
Food—Night Blindness in the Army of Northern Virginia— 
Desertions from the Confederate Armies—Prison Life—De- 
Forest Medal—Gen. Lee’s Hat. 346 


CHAPTER XXVI. 


Analysis of the Soldier-life. 

. 358 





FOUR YEARS UNDER 
MARSE ROBERT 


CHAPTER I 

EXPLANATION OF THE TITLE—SCHEME OF THE WORK 

“Four years under Marse Robert.” 

At the first blush this title may strike one as inaccurate, 
lacking in dignity, and bordering on the sensational. Yet 
the author prefers it to any other and is ready to defend it; 
while admitting, though this may seem inconsistent, that 
explanations are in order. 

Not one of his men was an actual follower of Robert 
Lee for four full years. In fact, he was not himself in the 
military service of Virginia and of the Confederate States 
together for that length of time, and he did not assume per¬ 
sonal command of what was then the Confederate “Army 
of the Potomac” and later, under his leadership, became 
the “Army of Northern Virginia,” until June i, 1862. 

But more than a year before, indeed just after the seces¬ 
sion of the State, Governor Letcher had appointed Lee to 
the chief command of the Virginia troops, which, under his 
plastic hand, in spite of vast obstacles, were turned over in 
a few weeks in fair soldierly condition to the Confederate 
Government, and became the nucleus of the historic Army 
of Northern Virginia; and their commander was created one 
of the five full generals provided for by law in the military 
service of the Confederate States. 

As full general in the Confederate service, Lee was not 
at first assigned to particular command, but remained at 
Richmond as “Military Adviser to the President.” In that 



l8 FOUR YEARS UNDER MARSE ROBERT 

position, as also in his assignment, somewhat later, to the 
conduct, under the advice of the President, of the operations 
of all the armies of the Confederate States, he of course had 
more or less supervision and control of the armies in Vir¬ 
ginia. Such continued to be Lee’s position and duties, and 
his relations to the troops in Virginia, until General Joseph 
E. Johnston, commanding the army defending Richmond, 
was struck down at Seven Pines, or Fair Oaks, June ist, 
1862, when President Davis appointed Lee to succeed him 
in command of that army. 

From this brief review it appears clearly that the men 
who, after June ist, 1862, followed Lee’s banner and were 
under his immediate command were, even before that time 
and from the very outset, in a large and true sense his 
soldiers and under his control; so that, while strictly speak¬ 
ing no soldier followed Lee for four years, yet we who 
served in Virginia from the beginning to the end of the 
war are entitled, in the customary and popular sense, to 
speak of our term of service as “Four years under Lee.” 

But our claim is, “Four years under Marse Robert.” 
Why “Marse Robert?” 

So, in Innes Randolph’s inimitable song, “A Good Old 
Rebel,” the hero thus vaunts his brief but glorious annals: 

“I followed old Mars’ Robert 
For four year, near about; 

Got wounded in three places 
And starved at Pint Lookout” 

Again, why “Mars’ Robert?” 

The passion of soldiers for nicknaming their favorite 
leaders, re-christening them according to their unfettered 
fancy and their own sweet will, is well known. “The Little 
Corporal,” “The Iron Duke,” “Marshall Forwards,” 
“Bobs,” “Bobs Bahadur,” “Little Mac,” “Little Phil,” 
“Fighting Joe,” “Stonewall,” “Old Jack,” “Old Pete,” 
“Old Jube,” “Jubilee,” “Rooney,” “Fitz,” “Marse Robert” 
—all these and many more are familiar. There is something 
grotesque about most of them and in many, seemingly, rank 
disrespect. Yet the habit has never been regarded as a vio- 


EXPLANATION OF THE TITLE 


X 9 


lation of military law, and the commanding general of an 
army, if a staunch fighter, and particularly if victory often 
perches on his banner, is very apt to win the noways doubt¬ 
ful compliment of this rough and ready knighthood from 
his devoted troops. But however this may be, “Marse Rob¬ 
ert” is far away above the rest of these soldier nicknames in 
pathos and in power. 

In the first place, it is essentially military. 

Though in form and style as far as possible removed 
from that model, this quaint title yet rings true upon the 
elemental basis of military life—unquestioning and unlim¬ 
ited obedience. It embodies the strongest possible expres¬ 
sion of the short creed of the soldier: 

“Their’s not to reason why, 

Their’s but to do and die.” 

I do not believe an army ever existed which surpassed 
Lee’s ragged veterans in hearty acceptance and daily prac¬ 
tice of this soldier creed, and there is no telling to what 
extent their peculiar nickname for their leader was re¬ 
sponsible for this characteristic trait of his followers. Men 
who spoke habitually of their commanding general as “Mas¬ 
ter” could not but feel the reflex influence of this habit upon 
their own character as soldiers. This much may certainly 
be said of this graphic title of the great captain; but this is 
not all. 

“Marse Robert!” It goes without saying that the title is 
distinctively Southern. 

The homely phrase was an embodiment of the earliest 
and strongest associations of the men applied in reverent 
affection, but also in defiant yet pathetic protest. It was, in 
some sense, an outcry of the social system of the South as¬ 
sailed and imperilled by the war and doomed to perish in 
the great convulsion. The title “Marse Robert” fitted at 
once the life of the soldier and the life of the slave, because 
both were based upon the principle of absolute obedience to 
absolute authority. 

In this connection it may not be uninteresting to note 
—what is perhaps not generally known—that during the 


20 


FOUR YEARS UNDER MARSE ROBERT 


last months of the war the Confederate authorities can¬ 
vassed seriously the policy of arming the Southern slaves 
and putting them in the field as soldiers. I was told by a 
leading member of the Senate of Virginia that, by special 
invitation, General Lee came over from Petersburg and 
appeared before, as I remember, a joint committee of the 
two Houses, to which this matter had been referred, and 
gave his opinion in favor of the experiment upon the ground, 
mainly, that unhesitating and unlimited obedience—the first 
great lesson of the soldier—was ingrained, if not inborn, in 
the Southern slave. 

Yet once more—to christen Lee “Master” was an act of 
homage peculiarly appropriate to his lofty and masterful 
personality. 

There never could have been a second “Marse Robert;” 
as, but for the unparalleled elevation and majesty of his 
character and bearing, there would never have been the 
first. He was of all men most attractive to us, yet by no 
means most approachable. We loved him much, but we 
revered him more. We never criticised, never doubted him; 
never attributed to him either moral error or mental weak¬ 
ness; no, not even in our secret hearts or most audacious 
thoughts. I really believe it would have strained and 
blurred our strongest and clearest conceptions of the dis¬ 
tinction between right and wrong to have entertained, even 
for a moment, the thought that he had ever acted from 
any other than the purest and loftiest motive. I never but 
once heard of such a suggestion, and then it so transported 
the hearers that military subordination was forgotten and 
the colonel who heard it rushed with drawn sword against 
the major-general who made it. 

The proviso with which a ragged rebel accepted the doc¬ 
trine of evolution, that “the rest of us may have descended 
or ascended from monkeys, but it took a God to make Marse 
Robert,” had more than mere humor in it. 

I am not informed whether the figure of speech to which 
I am about to refer ever obtained outside the South, or 
whether its use among us was generally known beyond our 
borders. It undoubtedly originated with our negroes, being 


EXPLANATION OF THE TITLE 


21 


an expression of their affectionate reverence for their mas¬ 
ters, by metaphor, transferred to the one great “Lord and 
Master” of us all; but it is certainly also true that Southern 
white men, and especially Southern soldiers, were in the 
habit—and that without the least consciousness of irrever¬ 
ence—of referring to the Divine Being as “Old Marster,” in 
connection especially with our inability to comprehend His 
inscrutable providences and our duty to bow to His irre¬ 
versible decrees. There is no way in which I can illustrate 
more vividly the almost worship with which Lee’s soldiers 
regarded him than by saying that I once overheard a conver¬ 
sation beside a camp fire between two Calvinists in Confed¬ 
erate rags and tatters, shreds and patches, in which one sim¬ 
ply and sincerely inquired of his fellow, who had just spoken 
of “Old Marster,” whether he referred to “the one up at 
headquarters or the One up yonder.” 

We never compared him with other men, either friend or 
foe. He was in a superlative and absolute class by himself. 
Beyond a vague suggestion, after the death of Jackson, as 
to what might have been if he had lived, I cannot recall 
even an approach to a comparative estimate of Lee. 

As to his opponents, we recked not at all of them, but 
only of the immense material force behind them; and as to 
that, we trusted our commanding general like a providence. 
There was at first a mild amusement in the rapid succes¬ 
sion of the Federal commanders, but even this grew a little 
trite and tame. There was, however, one point of great 
interest in it, and that was our amazement that an army 
could maintain even so much as its organization under the 
depressing strain of these successive appointments and 
removals of its commanding generals. And to-day I, for 
one, regard the fact that it did preserve its cohesion and its 
fighting power under and in spite of such experiences, as 
furnishing impressive demonstration of the high character 
and intense loyalty of our historic foe, the Federal Army of 
the Potomac. 

As to the command of the Army of Northern Virginia, 
so far as I know or have reason to believe, but one man in the 
Confederate States ever dared to suggest a change, and that' 


22 


FOUR YEARS UNDER MARSE ROBERT 


one was Lee himself, who—after the battle of Gettysburg, 
and again, I think, though I cannot verify it, when his 
health gave way for a time under the awful strain of the 
campaign of ’64—suggested that it might be well he should 
give way to a younger and stronger man. But the fact is, 
that Lee’s preeminent fitness for supreme command was so 
universally recognized that, in spite of the obligation of a 
soldier to undertake the duties of any position to which he 
may be assigned by competent authority, I doubt whether 
there was an officer in all the armies of the Confederacy who 
would have consented to accept appointment as Lee’s suc¬ 
cessor in command of the Army of Northern Virginia— 
possibly there was one—and I am yet more disposed to ques¬ 
tion whether that army would have permitted Lee to resign 
his place or any other to take it. Looking back over its 
record, from Seven Pines to Appomattox, I am satisfied that 
the unquestioned and unquestionable preeminence, predomi¬ 
nance, and permanence of Lee, as its commander-in-chief, 
was one of the main elements which made the Army of 
Northern Virginia what it was. 

I have said we never criticised him. I ought, perhaps, 
to make one qualification of this statement. It has been 
suggested by others and I have myself once or twice felt 
that Lee was too lenient, too full of sweet charity and allow¬ 
ance. He did not, as Jackson did, instantly and relentlessly 
remove incompetent officers. 


The picture is before you, and yet it is not intended as a 
full picture, but only as such a presentation of him, from 
the point of view of his soldiers, as will explain and justify 
the quaint title which they habitually applied to their great 
commander. I have not attempted and shall not attempt a 
complete portrait. Why should I, when the most eloquent 
tongues and pens of two continents have labored to present, 
with fitting eulogy, the character and career of our great 
Cavalier. It is our patent of nobilty that he is to-day re¬ 
garded—the world over—as the representative of the sol¬ 
diery of the South. 


EXPLANATION OF THE TITLE 


23 


Not only is it true of him, as already intimated, that he 
uniformly acted from the highest motive presented to his 
soul—but so impressive and all-compelling was the majesty 
of his virtue that it is doubtful whether any one ever ques¬ 
tioned aught of this. It is perhaps not too much to say that 
the common consensus of Christendom—friend and foe and 
neutral—ranks him as one of the greatest captains of the 
ages and attributes to him more of the noblest virtues and 
powers, with less of the ordinary selfishness and littleness 
of humanity, than to any other great soldier. .This is what 
is meant by our dedication—that the world has come to view 
him very much as his ragged followers did in the grand days 
when they were helping him to make history. 

Can you point to another representative man upon whom 
the light of modern day has been focussed with such inten¬ 
sity, of whom these supreme things may be said with so 
little strain; or rather, with acquiescence practically univer¬ 
sal? For our part, we say emphatically—we know not 
where to look for the man. 

The scheme of this book is a modest one. The author 
makes no pretense that he is qualified to write history or to 
discuss learnedly, from a professional standpoint, the bat¬ 
tles and campaigns of armies; while of course an old veteran 
cannot be expected always and absolutely to refrain from 
saying how the thing looked to him. All that is really pro¬ 
posed—and the writer will be more than content if he acquit 
himself fairly well of this limited design—is to state clearly 
and truthfully what he saw and experienced as a private sol¬ 
dier and subordinate officer in the military service of the 
Confederate States in Virginia from ’61 to '65. 

It is not proposed, however, to give a consecutive recital 
of all that occurred during these four years, even within 
the narrow range of the writer’s observation and experience; 
but rather to select and record such incidents, arranged of 
course in a general orderly sequence, as are deemed to be of 
inherent interest, or to shed light upon the portrait of the 
Confederate soldier, the personality of prominent actors in 
the war drama upon the Southern side, the salient points 


24 


FOUR YEARS UNDER MARSE ROBERT 


of the great conflict, or the general conditions of life in and 
behind the Confederate lines. 

Again, such are the imperfections of human observation 
and such the irregularities and errors of human memory, 
especially in the record of events long past, that many may 
be disposed to question the value of such a book as this, 
written to-day, relating to our civil war. I can only reply 
that not a few of the incidents recorded were reduced to 
writing years ago, indeed soon after they occurred; while 
perhaps as much has been gained in perspective as has been 
lost in detail, by waiting. Certainly it can be better deter¬ 
mined to-day what is worthy of preservation and publica¬ 
tion than it could have been immediately after the war. 

The slips and vagaries of memory, however, cannot be 
denied or excluded. It can only be said, “forewarned is 
forearmed.” I shall endeavor to exercise that conscientious 
care which the, character of the work requires, but cannot 
hope to attain uniform and unerring accuracy in every detail. 
In the record of conversations, interviews, and speeches I 
shall sometimes adopt the form of direct quotation, even 
where not able to recall the precise words employed by the 
speakers and interlocutors—if I am satisfied this form of 
narrative will best convey the real spirit of the occasion. 

And as the writer is, in the main, to relate what he saw 
and heard and did, he craves in advance charitable toleration 
of the first personal pronoun in the singular number. 


CHAPTER II 


INTRODUCTORY SKETCHES 


Ante-war History of the Author—The Fight for the “Speakership” in 
i860—Vallandigham, of Ohio—Richmond After the John Brown 
Raid—Whig and Democratic Conventions of Virginia in i860. 


There are features of my antecedent personal history cal¬ 
culated, perhaps, to impart a somewhat special interest to 
my experiences as a Confederate soldier. I was the eldest 
son of the Rev. Joseph C. Stiles, a Presbyterian minister, 
born in Georgia, where his ancestors had lived and died 
for generations, but who moved to the North and, from my 
boyhood, had lived in New York City and in New Haven, 
Conn. I was prepared for college in the schools of these two 
cities and was graduated at Yale in 1859. It so happened 
that I had never visited the South since the original removal 
of the family, which occurred when I was some twelve years 
of age; so that practically all my education, associations and 
friendships were Northern. True, I took position as a 
Southerner in all our college discussions and debates, but 
never as a “fire-eater” or secessionist. Indeed, I was a 
strong “Union man” and voted for Bell and Everett in i860. 

After my graduation in 1859 I passed the late summer 
and autumn in the Adirondack woods fishing and hunting 
with several classmates, and devoted the rest of the year to 
general reading and some little teaching, in New Haven; 
until, becoming deeply interested in the fierce struggle over 
the Speakership of the House of Representatives, I went to 
Washington, and from the galleries of the House and Sen¬ 
ate eagerly overhung the great final debates. I had paid 
close attention to oratory during my college course and 
I doubt whether there was an onlooker in the Capitol 
more deeply absorbed than I. On more than one occasion 


2 6 


FOUR YEARS UNDER MARSE ROBERT 


the excitement and pressure of the crowd in the galleries 
of the House was fearful, and once at least persons were 
dragged out, more dead than alive, over the heads of others 
sc densely packed that they could not move; but I never 
failed to secure a front seat. 

I grew well acquainted—that is, by sight—with the party 
leaders, and recall, among others, Seward and Douglas and 
Breckenridge, Davis and Toombs and Benjamin, in the Sen¬ 
ate; Sherman and Stevens, Logan and Vallandigham y 
Pryor and Keitt, Bocock and Barksdale, and Smith, of Vir¬ 
ginia, in the House. It became intensely interesting to me 
to observe the part some of these men played later in the 
great drama: Seward as the leading figure of Lincoln’s- 
Cabinet; Davis as President of the Southern Confederacy; 
Benjamin, Toombs, and Breckenridge as members of his 
Cabinet, the two latter also as generals whom I have more 
than once seen commanding troops in battle; “Black Jack” 
Logan,—hottest of all the hotspurs of the extreme Southern 
wing of the Democratic party in the House in i860,—we all 
know where he was from ’61 to ’65 ; and glorious old “Extra 
Billy” Smith, soldier and governor by turns; Barksdale, who- 
fell at Gettysburg, was my general, commanding the infan¬ 
try brigade I knew and loved best of all in Lee’s army and 
which often supported our guns; and poor Keitt! I saw him 
fall at Cold Harbor in ’64 and helped to rally his shattered 
command. 

The Republican party had nominated John Sherman for 
Speaker, and he was resisted largely upon the ground of his 
endorsement of Hinton Rowan Helper’s book, which was 
understood as inciting the negro slaves of the South to in¬ 
surrection, fire, and blood. The John Brown raid had oc¬ 
curred recently, and Col. Robert E. Lee had led the party of 
United States Marines which captured the raiders and their 
leader. They had just been convicted and executed as mur¬ 
derers. The excitement was frightful and ominous, and 
scenes of the wildest disorder occurred in the House. One 
of these was in every way so remarkable that I ask leave to 
describe it somewhat fully. 

The Republican leaders had become convinced they could 
not elect Sherman, and about the same time the Demo- 


INTRODUCTORY SKETCHES 


27 


crats, seeing there was no possibility of electing their 
original candidate, Thomas S. Bocock, of Virginia, had put 
up William N. H. Smith, of North Carolina, an old line 
Whig, or Southern American, and it seemed certain they 
would elect him. Indeed, he was elected and his election 
telegraphed all over the land; but before the result of the 
ballot could be announced, Henry Winter Davis, of Mary¬ 
land, and E. Joy Morris, of Pennsylvania, as I recollect, 
Northern Americans or Republicans, who had voted for 
Smith, changed their votes and everything was again at 
sea. It was then openly proposed to withdraw Sherman; 
and John Hickman, of Pennsylvania, who had been elected 
as an anti-Lecompton Democrat, but had gone over to the 
Republicans, took the floor to resist what he characterized 
as cowardice and treachery. Hickman had not voted for 
Sherman until the crisis was reached, but had been openly 
charged, on the floor of the House, with secretly desiring 
and plotting to elect him. Pryor and Keitt and other hot¬ 
headed Southerners had attacked Hickman fiercely, and 
leading Northern Democrats had upbraided him for his de¬ 
sertion. Under these taunts and thrusts he had become the 
bitterest man upon the floor. 

In the gloom which seemed to overshadow the House, 
Hickman, as he rose, looked pale, repellent, ghastly, almost 
ghostly. Repeatedly during his harangue, which was really 
one of great power, he walked from his seat in the back part 
of the House, down the narrow aisle toward the Clerk’s 
desk, his right arm lifted high above his head, his fist clinch¬ 
ed and his whole frame trembling with passion, and as he 
reached the open space in front of the desk he would shriek 
out the climax of a paragraph, simultaneously smashing his 
fist wildly down upon a table that stood there. 

The speech produced a profound, almost awful, impres¬ 
sion. I remember the peroration as if it were yesterday, as 
he shouted, on his last stride down the aisle, glaring around 
upon his Republican associates: “I know not and I care 
not what others may do, but as for me and my house, we 
intend to vote for John Sherman—until Gabriel’s last trump, 
the crack of doom, and the day of judgment.” 


28 


FOUR YEARS UNDER MARSE ROBERT 


In spite of this powerful protest, as soon as the dilatory 
tactics of the opposition were exhausted and the ballot was 
called, it became evident that Sherman had been withdrawn; 
indeed he withdrew his own name, and Pennington, of New 
Jersey, a moderate Republican, and personally an unobjec¬ 
tionable man, was put up in his place. There was nothing 
that could now be done; this call of the roll would end it all. 

The Democrats went wild and every moment wilder, as 
the Republicans—even John Sherman’s most devoted friends 
as their names were called—one after another fell into line 
and voted, full-voiced, for “Pennington.” That is, all the 
Democrats went wild except Vallandigham, of Ohio. He 
sat coolly in his seat, while Barksdale, Keitt, Houston, Lo¬ 
gan, and the rest surged around him. When they appealed 
to him, with excited gesticulations, he simply brushed them 
aside and kept his eyes fixed on a particular spot on the Re¬ 
publican side. As Hickman’s name was called and he rose 
and voted for Pennington, Vallandigham sprang to his feet 
and, stretching out his right arm toward the Clerk’s desk, 
in a long, resonant drawl that would not be drowned, he 
shouted: “Mr. Clerk, I move that this House do now ad¬ 
journ!” 

Cries from the Republican side: “Sit down! Sit down! 
Order! Order! You can’t interrupt the ballot! Sit down! 

But Vallandigham went right on. He would not sit down, 
and he would interrupt the ballot—and he did. 

“Mr. Clerk, I move that this House do now adjourn, es¬ 
pecially, sir”—both arms now extended, mouth wide open, 
eyes wide staring—“especially, sir, since we have just had 
Gabriel’s last trump, the crack of doom and the day of 
judgment!” 

I question if anything like it ever occurred in the history 
of legislative bodies; or if any speech or stroke of daring 
leadership ever produced such an effect. A yell went up 
from the entire House—Democrats and Republicans joining 
in it. There was a wild burst and bolt, of perhaps half the 
delegates, out of the chamber, and then a rush of the rest 
for Vallandigham. 


INTRODUCTORY SKETCHES 


2 9 


I remember that old Houston, of Alabama, who weighed 
about a ton, ran up, puffing like a porpoise, and threw his im¬ 
mense bulk into Vallandigham’s arms, rolling him upon the 
floor. Poor Barksdale lost his wig in the scrimmage. In 
a twinkling the hero of the moment was lifted high upon 
the shoulders of his party friends, who marched triumph¬ 
antly all over the House, bearing him aloft and almost wav¬ 
ing him like a banner. 

By this flash of lightning out of the heavens, as it were, 
the Democrats gained another day, though they did not 
win the fight.* 

I cannot forbear another anecdote of this remarkable 
man; for while not an eye and ear witness to it as to that 
just related, the utterance attributed to him bears so un¬ 
mistakably the impress of his vigorous, incisive intellect 
and his power of crushing sarcasm, that I am almost willing 
to vouch for the truth of the recital. 

As the story goes, some time during the first half of the 
war Mr. Thaddeus Stevens, or some other equally single- 
hearted patriot, alarmed at the rapid depreciation of the cur¬ 
rency, offered in the House a measure providing in sub¬ 
stance that gold should not be sold at a premium; when from 

*It is proper to say that the Congressional Globe makes no mention 
of this remarkable episode—that is, of the startling culmination of it— 
though the facts and circumstances leading up to this culmination are 
there set out substantially as above related. The proceedings of the 
House, as recorded in the Globe at and about the date, are orderly and 
consecutive and the adjournments regular. The record, however, does 
show an adjournment over a day, and it may well be that the unparal¬ 
leled occurrence above described took place upon that day. Those 
familiar with Congressional proceedings are aware of the usage or rule 
preventing any trace upon the record of an irregular or illegal session 
or adjournment of the House; e. g. the House has occasionally met for 
business on Sunday and even remained in session all that day, but the 
entire Sunday session—with everything transacted thereat—is entered 
as of the preceding day. Therefore, while not assured precisely how the 
thing was done in this instance, it is not unlikely that the irregular, ille¬ 
gal and abortive proceedings above described took place upon the day 
covered by the adjournment, and that the entry of the adjournment over 
that day was an after-thought. 



30 FOUR YEARS UNDER MARSE ROBERT 

the back benches, where the little Democratic contingent was 
then wont to abide, Vallandigham arose and drawled out: 
“Mr. Speaker! I move you, sir, the following amendment 
to the bill: ‘Provided that, during the pendency of this act, 
the laws of nature and of finance and of common sense be, 
and they are, hereby suspended.’ ” 

I do not know whether any biography of Vallandigham 
has been published, but one should be. We realize, of 
course, that his attitude, actions, and utterances during the 
war must have been as offensive and irritating to the bulk 
of the people of the Northern States as they were refresh¬ 
ing and delightful to us of the South; but we believe the 
time has come when men of all parties would be able to ap¬ 
preciate his trenjendous vitality, his unconquerable cour¬ 
age, his unquenchable brilliance. 

And, by the way, his death, as the circumstances were 
narrated at the time in the public press, was even more mar¬ 
velous and startling than any incident of his checkered 
life. As I recall the facts, some years after the close of the 
war he was senior counsel for the defense in a murder trial 
which excited great popular interest. There had been a 
collision between the supposed murderer and his victim, at 
the close of which the latter had fallen mortally wounded 
by a pistol shot. 

Vallandigham’s theory was that he had been killed by the 
accidental discharge of his own weapon, and during an in¬ 
termission in the trial, taking up a pistol, he proceeded to 
illustrate to his associate counsel just how the thing might 
have occurred, when, shocking to relate, it did so occur 
again—the pistol was accidentally discharged into his own 
person and Vallandigham fell dead. 

At the close of the prolonged fight over the Speakership 
I left Washington and ran down to Richmond, with a view 
of “spying out the land” as a place in which to try my for¬ 
tune when I should have acquired my profession. My father 
had been pastor of a church in that city for four years during 
my childhood, and had been much beloved by his people, who 
received me with more than old Virginia hospitality. I 
was charmed with everything I saw and every one I met, 


INTRODUCTORY SKETCHES 


31 


except that I was shocked and saddened by meeting every¬ 
where young men of my own age in military uniform. .They 
had not long since returned from the camp at Charlestown 
and the execution of John Brown, and it chilled me to see 
that they regarded themselves, as they proved indeed to be, 
the advance guard of the great army which would soon be 
embattled in defence of the South. I loved the Union pas¬ 
sionately, and while I had seen a great deal at Washington 
that made me tremble for it, yet I had not there seen men 
armed and uniformed as actual soldiers in the war of dis¬ 
union. 

It was not a little singular that most of these young men 
—that is to say, those whom for the most part I met in a 
social way—belonged to the Richmond Howitzers, the very 
-corps which, without choice on my part, I joined in 1861, 
and with which I served during the greater part of the war. 

State conventions, both of the Whig and Democratic 
parties, sat in Richmond during my visit and discussed, of 
course, mainly the one absorbing issue. I was an eager 
•observer of the proceedings and much impressed with the 
high average of intelligence and speaking power in both 
Todies. This seemed especially true of the Whig Conven¬ 
tion—perhaps because I was so much in sympathy with that 
party in deprecating the disruption of the Union. I con¬ 
fess, however, the question has since been often pressed 
Tome upon me whether, after all, the Democrats of Vir¬ 
ginia did not, in this great crisis, exhibit a higher degree of 
prescient statesmanship. 

Among the Whig leaders I distinctly recall William Bal¬ 
lard Preston, A. H. H. Stuart, Thomas Stanhope Flournoy, 
and John Minor Botts. I do not remember whether John 
B. Baldwin was a member of this convention of i860. If 
so, I did not happen to hear him speak. Mr. Preston, Mr. 
Stuart, and Mr. Flournoy, as well as Mr. Baldwin, were, 
later, members of the Secession Convention of Virginia, but 
all were Union men up to President Lincoln’s call for troops. 
Mr. Preston and Mr. Stuart were not only finished orators, 
but statesmen of ability and experience. Both had graced 
the Legislature of their State and the Congress of the United 


32 


FOUR YEARS UNDER MARSE ROBERT 


States, and both had been members of the Federal Cabinet 
—Mr. Preston during General Taylor’s and Mr. Stuart dur¬ 
ing Mr. Fillmore’s administration. Mr. Preston was after¬ 
wards a member of the Confederate Senate and Mr. Stuart 
one of the commissioners appointed by Virginia to confer 
with Mr. Lincoln as to his attitude and action toward the 
seceded States. 

Mr. Botts made a very powerful address before the con¬ 
vention, but the spirit of it did not please me. He belittled the 
John Brown raid, at the same time accusing Governor Wise 
of having done everything in his power to magnify it. He 
ridiculed the Governor’s military establishment and his “men 
in buckram,” while dubbing him “The un-epauletted hero of 
the Ossawattomie war.” He said that old John Brown 
certainly did a good deal against the peace and prosperity 
of the commonwealth and the country, but added, “What¬ 
ever he left undone in this direction has been most effectu¬ 
ally carried out by his executor, the late Governor of Vir¬ 
ginia.” 


CHAPTER III 


FROM NEW YORK TO RICHMOND 

Quieting Down to the Study of Law in New York—Progress of the 
Revolution—Virginia’s Attempted Mediation—Firing on Sumter— 
Back to New Haven—A Remarkable Man and a Strange, Sad Story 
—Off for Dixie—In Richmond Again. 

At the close of this, my first visit South, I turned North¬ 
ward, filled with admiration and affection for the Southern 
people and feeling that I had found my future home. Not¬ 
withstanding the dark shadow that impended, I little fan¬ 
cied that I would so soon again see the fair city of my 
choice and under circumstances changed so sadly. I was 
young, and as I turned my back upon Virginia and the 
John Brown raid, which were then the points of greatest 
tension, my strained nerves relaxed, and what I had seen and 
heard of evil portent faded away like a disturbing dream 
when one awakes. 

I found my dear ones well and the practical New Eng¬ 
landers, at least most of them, deeply immersed in business 
and finance. Like many wiser men, I felt reassured by the 
comforting conviction that the material interests of this 
rapidly developing country were too vast, too solid and 
priceless to be shattered and sacrificed in these superficial 
popular excitements. 

In the quiet of the family circle we discussed my plans 
and determined that I should enter the Law School of 
Columbia College in the approaching fall. I do not re¬ 
member where I went or what I did during the summer 
vacation, but in the early autumn I came back thoroughly 
quieted, rested and refreshed, went promptly to New York 
City and entered with enthusiasm upon the study of my 
chosen profession under that admirable teacher, Professor 
Theodore W. Dwight, of Columbia. 


3 


34 FOUR YEARS UNDER MARSE ROBERT 

For a time all went well. True, the ground swell of a 
mighty revolution was gradually rising at the South, but 
no one about me believed it would ever break in the angry 
waves of actual war, and I was not wiser than my fellows. 
Indeed I purposely turned my thoughts away, which for 
the time was not difficult to do, enamored as I was of the 
law. 

Three or four of us, Yale graduates and classmates, were 
in the same boarding-house on Washington Square. Ed- 
Carrington, a youth of uncommon power and promise, who 
lost his life during the war in an obscure skirmish in Flor¬ 
ida, like myself, was studying law, but he roomed with Joe 
Twichell, who was then studying theology; dear Joe, who 
preached the bi-centennial sermon at Yale, and is to-day, as 
he has always been, the most admired and best beloved man 
of the class of ’59. My room-mate was Tom Lounsbury, 
then employed in literary work on one of the great encyclo¬ 
pedias, to-day the distinguished incumbent of the Chair of 
English in Yale University. 

But this peace was not to last long. The election of Lin¬ 
coln, the rapid secession of the Southern States, the forma¬ 
tion of the Southern Confederacy, the inauguration of the 
Presidents, first of the new and then of the old federation; 
the adoption by the Southern States of a different and a 
permanent Constitution—all this tended strongly to con¬ 
vince thoughtful men that the two sections, or the two 
countries, were deeply in earnest and differed radically and 
irreconciliably as to the construction of the United States 
Constitution. Then came the strained situation in Charles¬ 
ton harbor, and the futile efforts of the Peace Congress 
called by Virginia, and later, of her commissioners and those 
appointed by the Confederate Government to wait upon 
President Lincoln. 

It is unnecessary to say that, though striving hard to 
maintain my hold upon the law, I was yet far from an in¬ 
different spectator of this majestic march of events. I 
went repeatedly to talk with two or three of the leading 
business men of New York, who had been friends and 
parishioners of my father while pastor of a church in that 


FROM NEW YORK TO RICHMOND 


35 


city, and was delighted to find them hopeful; relying not 
only upon the weight and influence of material and business 
interests to avert actual war, but also, and especially, upon 
the noble intervention and mediation of Virginia. 

It made my heart glow to hear how these great financiers 
and merchant princes spoke of my adopted State. They 
said in effect, that it had always been so; that Virginia was 
undoubtedly the greatest and most influential of all the 
States; that she had been the nursing mother of the Union 
and of the country and would prove their preserver; that 
Virginians had really made the United States in the olden 
days,—Washington, Jefferson, Madison, Marshall,—and 
Virginians would save the United States to-day. They de¬ 
clared that they had always worshiped the Old Dominion, 
and now, more than ever, for the noble position she had as¬ 
sumed in this crisis. 

How could I help glowing with pride and brightening 
with hope! Alas! the shriek of the first shell that burst over 
Sumter shattered these fair hopes—and pandemonium 
reigned in New York. 

It is not within the province of this book to discuss the 
responsibility for that shell. I will, however, be candid 
enough to say that I never entertained a doubt as to the 
South having the best of the Constitutional argument; and 
yet, so strong was my love for the Union and my affec¬ 
tion for my friends, at least nine-tenths of whom were on 
the Northern side, that I often felt, and more than once 
said, I could never strike a blow or fire a shot in the con¬ 
flict, if it should come. Nevertheless, I was inexorably led in 
the sequel to give myself unreservedly and whole-heartedly 
to the defense of the South. 

One link in the chain that led to this decision was the 
conviction that forced itself upon me that I could not re¬ 
main in New York. After the firing upon Sumter the whole 
city was in an uproar. A wild enthusiasm for “the flag” 
seized and swept the entire population which surged through 
streets hung with banners and bunting, their own persons 
bedecked with small United States flags and other patriotic 
devices. It is not worth while to go further into these de- 


36 FOUR YEARS UNDER MARSE ROBERT 

tails. Enough to say that it was manifestly as uncomfort¬ 
able and impracticable, at that time, for me to remain in 
New York as for an able-bodied young man, of strong con¬ 
victions on the Northern side of the controversy, to remain 
in Richmond. 

Therefore I returned to New Haven, where, with the en¬ 
tire family assembled, we conferred over the situation and 
decided that father and his three boys must go South as soon 
as possible, leaving mother and the girls to follow when the 
way should be clear and we ready to receive them. As there 
was no assurance of reaching our destination in safety with¬ 
out passports, father, who knew General Scott well, applied 
to him for passes South for himself and his three boys. The 
General replied, sending my father a pass, but refusing to 
furnish passports for his sons, and it then became necessary 
for us boys to devise some route, other than the railroads, 
for reaching our Southern friends. 

My next younger brother was an expert sailor, having 
followed the sea for years, and was recognized as perhaps 
the most daring and skilful manager of a small sailing 
craft to be found about New Haven harbor, or indeed any¬ 
where in that part of Long Island Sound. As there seemed 
to be no other way to Virginia open to us, we bought a 
staunch, swift sail-boat, had her carefully caulked and over¬ 
hauled, and set to work to make her some extra sails which 
my brother thought we might need during our voyage. We 
procured a copy of a detailed survey of the coast along that 
part of the Eastern Shore of Virginia where we proposed to 
land, and also letters to gentlemen living along that coast. 
The preparation of the boat and the working up of our ex¬ 
pedition was a great relief, not only in giving us something 
to do, but also in holding out the prospect of interesting ad¬ 
venture accompanied by a reasonable spice of peril. 

About this time I discovered, in taking a sort of spiritual 
inventory of myself, that I had passed to another and dis¬ 
tinct stage of feeling and of purpose. I believed firmly my 
people in the South were right; I knew well they were weak; 
I saw clearly they were about to be invaded; and I was striv¬ 
ing to get to them. To what end? With what purpose? To 


FROM NEW YORK TO RICHMOND 


37 


give them another mouth to feed, or to give them another 
man to fight ? Right, weakness, invasion!—how could there 
be any save one inference from such a trinity of proposi¬ 
tions ? I did not fully realize this process as it was wrought 
out in me; but when I came to find my scruples and my 
shrinking gone—though not my sorrow—I looked back and 
plainly saw the path along which I had been led. From that 
hour, throughout the four years of my service as a Confeder¬ 
ate soldier, never did I entertain a doubt as to my being 
where I should be and doing what I should do. 

While our boat was making ready for the trip, some one 
called at the house and asked for me, but sent no card, so I 
went to the reception-room, having no idea who my visitor 
was. 

“Why, Beers!” I cried, “what are you doing here?” He 
was very pale, and had evidently been subjected to severe 
mental and moral tension—nevertheless, Yankee-like, he an¬ 
swered my question by asking another, “What are you going 
to do?” “O,” said I, “we are going South by sail-boat; 
General Scott won’t let us go by railroad.” Instantly he re¬ 
plied, “I am going with you.” 

Who was the man who thus, without hesitation, reserva¬ 
tion or condition, cast in his lot with us ? 

The story is in every way so remarkable that I cannot 
forbear a full recital of it. It should not be forgotten, 
however, that while the peace of death has, years agone, 
passed upon the chief actor in this strange, sad drama, and 
probably also upon most of his relatives living when he died 
—there may yet be others now living to whom the record of 
his life and death must needs be somewhat painful; there¬ 
fore I shall endeavor to tell the story simply and quietly. 

When I first knew James H. Beers he was an intelligent 
young mechanic—originally, I think, from Bridgeport, 
Conn., but at the time living in New Haven, where I was a 
college student. We were both members of a Bible-class 
connected with a church of which my father was then pas¬ 
tor, and Mr. Gerard Hallock, of the New York Journal of 
Commerce, the most prominent member. 


3 « 


FOUR YEARS UNDER MARSE ROBERT 


Soon after my first acquaintance with Beers, Mr. Hallock 
became interested in him, attracted by his regular attend¬ 
ance at church and Bible-class, and his modest yet self-re¬ 
spectful and intelligent bearing, and he took him to New 
York in some subordinate capacity connected with his paper. 
This was a few years before the war, but Beers continued to 
visit New Haven often, perhaps regularly. We heard from 
time to time that he had exhibited unusual facility for jour¬ 
nalism and had been rapidly advanced, until he had come to 
be an assistant to the night editor of Mr. Hallock's great 
paper. It was probably through his connection with the 
leading Democratic daily that he imbibed the views he held 
as to the construction of the Federal Constitution and the 
relations between the Federal Government and the States; 
views which he followed to their logical conclusion and in 
defense of which he ultimately laid down his life. 

As the sectional excitement increased and civil war be¬ 
came more and more imminent, Beers grew more and more 
restless and unhappy, until actual hostilities began with 
the bombardment of Sumter, when he informed Mr. Hallock 
that it would be impossible for him to continue to discharge 
his duties upon the paper. Thereupon he left New York and 
appeared in New Haven, as above described. 

When he announced his determination of going with us 
I discouraged it, reminding him that he was a Northern 
man and had, besides, a wife and two little girls to provide 
for; mentioning also his fine position and prospects, all of 
which would necessarily be sacrificed. He replied that he 
had some money which he would leave with our mother, 
trusting her to use it for his wife and children and to bring 
them South when she came; adding that God never gave a 
man a wife and children to stand in the way of the discharge 
of his plain duty, and that it was plainly his duty to go with 
us and aid the South in defense of her clear and clearly-vio¬ 
lated rights. 

I cut the matter short by referring him to my father, and 
he at once went to his room and saw him. Father after¬ 
wards told me it was obvious that Mr. Beers' mind was irre¬ 
vocably made up and that it would be worse than useless to 


FROM NEW YORK TO RICHMOND 


39 


resist him further; so it was settled he was to go with us. 
I do not remember whether his wife and children were then 
in New Haven, but they were committed by him to the 
care of our mother and sisters, and later followed Beers to 
Virginia, as I now recollect, in company with the ladies of 
our family. 

Everything was arranged and we were to embark and 
sail on a certain night, but during the preceding day a tele¬ 
gram was received from a friend who was standing guard 
for us in Washington, which by a sort of prearranged cipher 
we understood to mean that we could slip^ through safely if 
we left New York by a certain train the next day. My recol¬ 
lection is that it was deemed best to divide the party—Beers, 
my next younger brother, and I getting off so as to catch 
the train indicated; father and my youngest brother, then 
below fighting age, following later. 

We reached Washington and got safely across the river 
and to our destination, but, by some untoward accident, Beers 
was left behind and experienced some difficulty in dodging 
the provost guard and completing the last stage of his “on to 
Richmond.” We were very uneasy, met every train from 
the North, and were unspeakably relieved when he arrived. 
We had told his story to our friends and he was welcomed 
into the same hospitable family circle which was entertain¬ 
ing us. The city was crowded with people, but the sons of 
Virginia were flocking home to her defense and every heart 
and every door was open to receive them. 

A day or two after his arrival a most unpleasant expe¬ 
rience befell poor Beers. Walking by himself in the street, 
he was arrested as a spy and locked up in the negro jail. 
For hours we were unable to ascertain what had become of 
him, and when we did find out it was too late to procure his 
release on habeas corpus; so with profound mortification and 
profuse apologies we had to content ourselves with doing 
what we could to make him comfortable where he was, he 
protesting that he needed nothing and could suffer no real 
inconvenience that one night. Indeed, noble fellow that he 
was, he met me with a manly smile at the door of his cell, 
expressing mingled amusement and approbation; saying that 


4 o 


FOUR YEARS UNDER MARSE ROBERT 


while the charge of his being a spy was a little wide of the 
mark, yet the mistake was a very natural one, that there 
were doubtless numbers of such characters about, and he 
was glad to see that we were on the alert for them. 

Next morning when his case was called in the Mayor’s 
Court something of the truth with regard to him had gotten 
abroad and the court-room was crowded with the first gen¬ 
tlemen of Richmond. I was the main witness, and it goes 
without saying that the dramatic points of Beers’ strange 
story, especially those that would most commend him to the 
Southern people, lost nothing in the telling. He was not 
only honorably discharged, but he was vociferously cheered 
by the entire audience, and he walked out of the court-room 
the idol of the hour—the rest of the last rebel reinforcement 
from the North shining somewhat in his reflected light. 
Thus, to our great relief, the awkward contretemps of his 
arrest contributed rather to the reputation and advantage of 
our friend. 

I recall this additional incident: Mr. John Randolph 
Tucker—“Ran. Tucker”—then Attorney-General of Vir¬ 
ginia, was an intimate friend of my father, who had now 
arrived in Richmond, and suggested to him that Mr. Beers 
and I, as we were citizens of the State of Connecticut where 
I had recently cast my first vote, were in rather an excep¬ 
tional position, as bearing upon a possible charge of treason, 
in case we should enlist in the military service. The sug¬ 
gestion was deemed of sufficient importance to refer to Mr. 
Benjamin, then Attorney-General of the Confederate States, 
and Mr. Tucker and I interviewed him about it. These two 
great lawyers concurred in the view that the principles which 
protected citizens of the Southern and seceded States were, 
to say the least, of doubtful application to us, and that it 
would probably go rather hard with us if we should be cap¬ 
tured. Notwithstanding, I enlisted, and Beers would proba¬ 
bly have done so with equal promptness had he not been an 
expert mechanic—men so qualified being then very scarce in 
Richmond and very much needed. He was asked to assist in 
changing some old flintlocks belonging to the State of Vir¬ 
ginia into percussion muskets, and all of us insisting that he 


FRQM NEW YORK TO RICHMOND 41 

could thus render far more valuable service than by enlisting 
in the ranks, he reluctantly yielded and went to work. 

How long he was thus employed I do not know. My 
youngest brother went on to our relatives in Georgia, but 
soon after his arrival there insisted upon enlisting in one of 
the battalions for coast defense. My sailor brother and I en¬ 
listed in Richmond and joined the army at Manassas. I saw 
but little of Beers after this. Just when he entered the army 
I cannot say, but it must have been some time before the 
battles around Richmond in the early summer of 1862; for 
on the battle field of Malvern Hill I met some of the men of 
the “Letcher Artillery/’ to which he belonged, who told me 
that my “Yankee” was the finest gunner in the battery and 
fought like a Turk. Between Malvern Hill and Chancellors- 
ville I saw Beers perhaps two or three times—I think once 
in Richmond, after his wife and children and my mother 
and sisters arrived from the North. 

I have seldom seen a better-looking soldier. He was 
about five feet eleven inches in height, had fine shoulders, 
chest and limbs, carried his head high, had clustering brown 
hair, a steel-gray eye and a splendid sweeping moustache. 
Every now and then I heard from some man or officer of 
his battery, or of Pegram’s Battalion, some special praise of 
his gallantry in action, but as he was in A. P. Hill’s com¬ 
mand and I then in Longstreet’s, we seldom met. I am con¬ 
fident there is no battle-scarred veteran of Pegram’s Battal¬ 
ion living to-day but stands ready to vouch for Beers as the 
equal of any soldier in the command, and some of them ten¬ 
derly recall him as a good and true soldier of Jesus Christ 
as well as of Robert Lee. He was in the habit of holding- 
religious services with the men of his battalion on every 
fitting occasion—services which they highly appreciated. 

Just after the battle of Chancellorsville I was in Rich¬ 
mond, having recently received an appointment in “engineer 
troops.” I am unable to recall the details, but I was notified 
to meet poor Beers’ body at the train. Colonel, afterwards 
General, R. L. Walker (Lindsay Walker), commanding A. 
P. Hill’s artillery, hearing that Beers had been killed on the 
3d of May and buried upon the field, had the body exhumed 
and sent to me at Richmond. 


42 


FOUR YEARS UNDER MARSE ROBERT 


It is strange how everything connected with the burial, ex¬ 
cept the sad scene at the grave, seems to have faded out of 
my recollection. I know he was buried in our family lot in 
Hollywood, and as no one of us was buried there for long 
years after this, we must have bought the lot for the pur¬ 
pose. I remember, too, that we laid him to rest with mili¬ 
tary honors, Captain Gay’s company, the “Virginia State 
Guard,” acting as escort; and I must have ridden in the car¬ 
riage with the stricken widow and his two little girls, for 
I distinctly recall standing between the children at the side 
of the open grave and holding a hand of each as the body of 
their hero-father was lowered to its last resting place. I 
remember, too, that not a muscle of their pale, sweet faces 
quivered as the three volleys were fired over the low mound 
that covered him. They were the daughters of a soldier. 

There stands to-day over the grave a simple granite 
marker bearing this inscription: 

JAMES H. BEERS, 
of Connecticut, 

Who Fell at Chancellorsville, 

Fighting for Virginia and the South, 

May 3, 1863. 

My story is done, and I feel that it is worthy of recital 
and remembrance. Indeed it embodies the most impressive 
instance I have ever known of trenchant, independent 
thought and uncalculating, unflinching obedience to the re¬ 
sulting conviction of duty—“obedience unto death.” 

Observe, Beers had never been South and had no idea of 
ever going there until the Southern States were invaded. 
Observe again, he was not a man without ties, a homeless 
and heartless adventurer; but a complete man—a man bless¬ 
ed with wife and children and home, and withal a faithful 
and affectionate husband and father. Observe once more, 
he was not an unsuccessful or disappointed man. On the 
contrary, I have seldom known a man who had a position 
more perfectly congenial and satisfactory to him or whose 
prospects were brighter or more assured. It was simply and 
purely his conviction of right and of duty which led him to 
us and to his brave death. 


FROM NEW YORK TO RICHMOND 


43 


One feature of the poor fellow’s story, of intense color, 
has been purposely omitted. I refer to his parting with his 
parents. It is my strong desire that this sketch shall not 
contain one word calculated to bring unnecessary pain to the 
heart of any relative of my dear friend under whose eye it 
may chance to fall. If being a Southerner you would pass 
just and charitable judgment upon his family, try for a mo¬ 
ment to conceive what would have been the feelings of a 
Southern father and mother and family circle toward a son 
and brother who, in 1861, had proposed to go North for 
the purpose of fighting against his people and his State. 

My recollection is that Mrs. Beers did not long survive 
her husband. It gives me pleasure to say that, so far as I 
know, the family of Mr. Beers did their duty by his children. 
I tried to have the little girls adopted in the South, and 
came very near succeeding, yet perhaps it was, after all, well 
that their friends sent for them and that they finally returned 
to the North. 

It is well, too, that there are not more men like Beers in 
the world. The bands of organized society are not strong 
enough to endure many such. They are too trenchant, too 
independent, to be normal or safe. It is well that most of us 
believe and think and feel and act with the mass of our fel¬ 
low-beings about us. If it were not so, quiet and harmo¬ 
nious society would be impossible; it would dissolve and per¬ 
ish in fierce internecine strife. And yet, when every now 
and then God turns out a man of different mould, a man 
brave enough and strong enough not to be dominated in 
opinion, in conscience, or in action by his associates—we 
ordinary men, of average human stature and strength, real¬ 
ize how almost pitifully small and weak we are. 

The mound that covers James H. Beers is indeed low and 
humble, yet where will you dig in earth’s surface to find 
richer dust? I rejoice that he lies where he does, hard by 
my dear ones and where my own body will soon rest, so that 
when the resurrection trump shall call us all forth, after 
running over the roll of my beloved and finding them “all 
present or accounted for,” I can turn my eyes to the right 
and greet the hero whose sacred dust I have guarded all 
these years. 


CHAPTER IV 


FROM CIVIL TO MILITARY LIFE 

Off for Manassas—First Glimpse of Army an d a Battle-field—The 
Richmond Howitzers—Intellectual Atmosphere of the Camp—Es¬ 
sential Spirit of the Southern Volunteer. 

The exact dates of the personal movements and expe¬ 
riences thus far narrated cannot be determined. This is 
largely due to a habit of destroying family letters, and this 
to a weak dread of opening them, or even of looking upon 
them, after the lapse of years. 

Up to this point the lack of such letters has signified 
little. It can make little difference just when I left New 
York for New Haven, or when we left New Haven for 
Richmond, or Richmond for Manassas. This book is not 
intended to be a rigid record of the daily succession and the 
precise dates of camp and march and battle; and yet there 
is no gainsaying the almost inestimable value of letters to 
a book of reminiscence, furnishing contemporaneous record 
and comment so much more vivid and accurate than mem¬ 
ory. In the absence of these I shall have to rest largely, for 
the elements of time and date, upon the relation of what I 
may record to the general movement of the campaigns, 
which will, for the most part, prove sufficient for my pur¬ 
pose. For example, I know that Beers’ funeral was just 
after the battle of Chancellorsville, May 3, 1863; that we ar¬ 
rived in Richmond a short time before the battle of Bethel, 
June 10, 1861; that we left Richmond almost immediately 
after the battle of Manassas, July 21, 1861. 

It was not our fault that we did not leave earlier. My 
brother and I had volunteered in an infantry company called 
after a favorite corps which had left the city for the front, 
“Junior Company F,” which was being drilled in awkward 


FROM CIVIL TO MILITARY LIFE 


45 


squads in a large basement room under the Spotswood 
Hotel. We felt that the Juniors were hanging fire too long. 
The city was crowded with troops from all over Virginia 
and the South, pressing to the front, and with swarms of 
gaily dressed staff officers and military attaches and hang¬ 
ers-on, and we longed to be away, out of this martial show, 
and off to the real front. We grew daily more restless, es¬ 
pecially after the affair at Bethel—sometimes spoken of as 
“Big Bethel,” “Great Bethel,” or “Bethel Church.” The 
main armies were facing each other in central Virginia, and 
as day after day and week after week passed, we began to 
feel that it would be a personal reflection upon us if another 
fight should occur without our being in it. 

Suddenly the great battles of Manassas shocked the city 
and shook the continent, and we could stand it no longer. As 
I remember, it was but a day or two after the main fight of 
July 21 that my brother and I met two soldiers of the First 
Company, Richmond Howitzers, who were in the city on 
business for the company, and were to return next day. So 
without saying “by your leave” to any one, we boarded the 
cars next morning with these men. They undertook to 
conceal us on the train till it started and to secure our en¬ 
rollment in the company when we arrived—undertakings 
skilfully and faithfully performed. 

The ride to Manassas was certainly not a reassuring ex¬ 
perience. The train was crowded almost to suffocation with 
troops from a far Southern State. They had been long on 
the way and were worn with travel in the heat of summer. 
Some of the men were sleepy and sprawling, others restless 
and noisy, and both men and cars were very dirty. It was a 
tedious trip, but it ended at last, and we were glad to make 
our escape. As we stepped from the train we were met by 
two or three more of the Howitzers, to one of whom was 
committed the duty of piloting us to the camp of the bat¬ 
tery. 

We were very much struck with our guide. Scarcely 
more than a half-formed country lad, he was yet a fellow of 
genuine, transparent nature, healthy and hearty and strong 
in body and mind; one of the sturdiest, manliest figures and 


4 6 


FOUR YEARS UNDER MARSE ROBERT 


faces I ever looked upon. He seemed to be exceptionally 
right-minded, broad-minded, and intelligent, was evidently 
glad to see us and “to .tell us all about it”—the army and 
the battle and the service, as he saw them—and we heard 
much from him during our brief walk of just what we 
wanted to know. 

Such he was then. For the next four years he was the 
equal of any soldier in that incomparable army. To-day, 
thank God! he still lives, is perhaps the best beloved and 
most trusted friend I have on earth, one of the best citizens 
and farmers in Virginia—a man whom everybody knows 
and trusts and looks up to and leans upon. 

At last we were in “the army;” and what was it after all ? 
We walked perhaps a mile or more through the camps, and 
the prominent ideas borne in upon me were—multitude, 
overloading, lack of cohesion and of organization, absence 
of women and children, and a general sense of roughness 
and untidiness, of discomfort and confusion. Of course 
these impressions were soon to give way to others; but it 
was not alone my impressions that changed, it was the army 
itself. During the few months next ensuing it dispensed 
with useless baggage and equipment, acquired cohesion, 
organization, power and endurance, and men learned to do 
fairly well for themselves what women had theretofore in¬ 
variably done for them. Under the discipline of the next 
twelve months, imperfect as it was, we trained down and 
trained up, just as the fighting men do, to a condition of 
bare, hard flesh; compact yet supple muscles; clean, clear 
lungs; sound, strong hearts; and perfect possession and 
control of all our fighting powers. 

In connection with this process of training down to fight¬ 
ing weight, it occurs to me that the wagon train of the First 
Company, Richmond Howitzers, during the first nine 
months of the war was, I verily believe, quite as large as that 
of any infantry brigade in the army during the grand cam¬ 
paign of ’64. Many of the private soldiers of the company 
had their trunks with them, and I remember part of the con¬ 
tents of one of them consisted of a dozen face and a smaller 
number of foot or bath towels; and when the order came 


FROM CIVIL TO MILITARY LIFE 


47 


for trunks to be sent back to Richmond or abandoned, the 
owner of this elaborate outfit, although but a “high private 
in the rear rank/’ actually wrote and sent in to the captain 
an elegant note resigning his “position.” Yet this curled 
and scented gentleman became a superb soldier and used to 
laugh as heartily as any of us when, in after years, at some 
point of unusual want and stringency and discomfort, some 
impudent rascal would shout out, “Jim, old fellow, don’t 
you think it’s about time for you to resign again?” 

As to the battle-field, if it showed marked traces of the 
conflict that had taken place I do not recall them. One 
scene and incident, however, I do recall, which made a very 
tender impression upon me. Not long after our arrival the 
battery was about to change its position, indeed I think the 
head of the column was already in motion, when some one 
said to me, “Captain-is lying in that house over yon¬ 

der seriously, or it may be mortally, wounded; don’t you 
want to go and see him a moment?” I did not want to go, 
but I knew the poor fellow’s sisters and felt as if I ought to 
go, and I went. Few interviews have ever made deeper 
impression upon me. The heroic Christian man had been a 
prominent member of the Richmond bar and the mainstay 
and support of his sisters. He was now lying seriously 
wounded, in a deserted house, from which, as I remember, 
even the doors and windows had been carried off, and in 
which there seemed to be little or no furniture save the bed 
he occupied. The attendant who took care of him was not 
at the moment in the building. My comrade and I entered 
and I walked to the bedside, made myself known to the Cap¬ 
tain and told him that I had seen his sisters within a day or 
two and that they were well, but very anxious about him. 
He did not seem to be suffering greatly at the time, but was 
evidently death-struck and I think fully aware of it. Yet 
there was no shrinking and no tremor. His voice was firm 
and clear and he was entirely self-possessed. I took his 
hand, or he took mine, and my recollection is that my com¬ 
rade and I knelt by the bedside and we all prayed together 
for a few moments, and then we left him there in that deso¬ 
late place to meet the last enemy; but I felt, and I am sure 
he did, that he would not meet him alone. 



4 8 


FOUR YEARS UNDER MARSE ROBERT 


I had helped to take wounded men from the trains in 
Richmond, but they were surrounded by relatives and 
friends, or by admiring, almost worshiping crowds, and the 
entire city, with all it contained of sympathy and help, was 
at their feet. Here, however, was an entirely different pic¬ 
ture, and for a long time my mind every now and then re¬ 
verted to it with a sadness I could not dispel. 

The intellectual atmosphere of the Confederate camps was 
far above what is generally supposed by the people of this 
generation, even in the Southern States, and this intellectual 
aspiration and vigor of the men were exhibited perhaps 
equally in their religious meetings and services and in their 
dramatic representations and other exhibitions gotten up to 
relieve the tedium of camp. But however this may be in 
general it cannot be denied that the case of the Richmond 
Howitzers was exceptional in this regard. The corps was 
organized at the time of the John Brown raid by George W. 
Randolph, afterwards Secretary of War, and has never been 
disbanded. In 1861 it was recruited up to three companies 
and formed into a battalion, but unfortunately the first 
company was never associated with the other two in the 
field. The composition of the three companies was very 
similar; that is, all of them were made up largely of young 
business men and clerks of the highest grade and best char¬ 
acter from the city of Richmond, but included also a num¬ 
ber of country boys, for the most part of excellent families, 
with a very considerable infusion of college-bred men, for 
it was strikingly true that in 1861 the flower of our educated 
youth gravitated toward the artillery. The outcome was 
something quite unparalleled, so far as I know. It is safe 
to say that not less than one hundred men were commis¬ 
sioned from the corps during the war, and these of every 
rank from a Secretary of War down to a second lieutenant. 

Few things have ever impressed me as did the intellec¬ 
tual and moral character of the men who composed the cir¬ 
cle I entered the day our guide led my brother and myself 
to the Howitzer camp. I had lived for years at the North, 
had graduated recently at Yale, and had but just entered 


FROM CIVIL TO MILITARY LIFE 


49 


upon the study of law in the city of New York when the war 
began. Thus torn away by the inexorable demands of con¬ 
science and of loyalty to the South, from a focal point of 
intense intellectual life and purpose, one of my keenest re¬ 
grets was that I was bidding a long good-by to congenial 
surroundings and companionships. To my surprise and de¬ 
light, around the camp fires of the First Company, Rich¬ 
mond Howitzers, I found throbbing an intellectual life as 
high and brilliant and intense as any I had ever known. 

The Howitzer Glee Club, trained and led by Frederick 
Nicholls Crouch, author of “Kathleen Mavoureen,” was 
the very best I ever heard, and rendered music at once sci¬ 
entific and enjoyable. No law school in the land ever had 
more brilliant or powerful moot court discussions than 
graced the mock trials of the Howitzer Law Club. I have 
known the burial of a tame crow to be witnessed not only 
by the entire command, but by scores, perhaps hundreds, of 
intelligent people from a neighboring town, and to be dig¬ 
nified not only by salvos of artillery, but also by an English 
speech, a Latin oration, and a Greek ode, which would have 
done honor to any literary or memorial occasion at old Yale. 

There was a private soldier in the battery—not the poet 
of the crow’s death either—a Grecian of such finished skill 
that I have known him keep, for months together, a diary 
of the movements of the battery, in modern Greek; and have 
watched him—wondering if there was anywhere to be found 
another man of scholarship and scholarly enthusiasm so 
great—as he dodged the persistently pursuing smoke of a 
camp fire and by its wretched, flickering light, with pains¬ 
taking care, jotted down his exquisite, clear Greek lettering 
that looked like the most perfect output of the most perfect 
Greek press in Germany. So much for the intellectual life 
of our camp and march. 

What now of the essential spirit of these young volun¬ 
teers? Why did they volunteer? For what did they give 
their lives? We can never appreciate the story of their 
deeds as soldiers until we answer this question correctly. 

Surely it was not for slavery they fought. The great 
majority of them had never owned a slave and had little or 


4 


SO FOUR YEARS UNDER MARSE ROBERT 

no interest in the institution. My own father, for example, 
had freed his slaves long years before; that is, all save one, 
who would not be “emancipated,” our dear “Mammy,” who 
clung to us when we moved to the North and never recog¬ 
nized any change in her condition or her relations to us. 
The great conflict will never be properly comprehended by 
the man who looks upon it as a war for the preservation of 
slavery. 

Nor was it, so far as Virginia was concerned, a war in 
support of the right of secession or the Southern interpre¬ 
tation of the Constitution. Virginia did not favor this in¬ 
terpretation; at least, she did not favor the exercise of the 
right of secession. Up to President Lincoln’s call for 
troops she refused to secede. She changed her position 
under the distinct threat of invasion —the demand that she 
help coerce her sister States. This was the turning point. 
The Whig party, the anti-secession party of Virginia, 
became the war party of Virginia upon this issue. As 
John B. Baldwin, the great Whig and Union leader, said, 
speaking of the effect of Lincoln’s call for troops, “We have 
no Union men in Virginia now.” The change of front was 
instantaneous, it was intuitive. Jubal Early was the type 
of his party—up to the proclamation, the most extreme anti¬ 
secessionist and anti-war man in the Virginia Convention; 
after the proclamation, the most enthusiastic man in the 
Commonwealth in advocacy of the war and personal serv¬ 
ice in it. 

But coming closer down, let us see how the logic of these 
events wrought itself out among my comrades of the How¬ 
itzer Company. We will take as a type in this instance the 
case of a brilliantly endowed youth of excellent family in 
Richmond, who, like the guide who piloted us to the bat¬ 
tery upon the field of Manassas, became one of my closest 
and dearest friends, but unlike him and most unhappily for 
his family and his comrades, sealed his fate and his devo¬ 
tion with his life at Gettysburg. 

He was a student at the University of Virginia in the 
spring of ’61, and perhaps the most extreme and uncompro¬ 
mising “Union man” among all the young men gathered 


from civil to military LIFE 5T 

there. Indeed, so exaggerated were his anti-secession views 
and so bold and aggressive was he in advocacy of them, that 
he became very unpopular, and his friends feared serious 
trouble and even bloody collision. The morning President 
Lincoln’s proclamation appeared he had gone down town on 
personal business before breakfast, and while there hao- 
pened to glance at a paper. He returned at once to the 
University, but not to breakfast; spoke not a word to any 
human being, packed his trunk with his belongings, left a 
note for the chairman of the faculty explaining his conduct, 
boarded the first train for Richmond and joined a military 
company, before going to his father’s house or taking so 
much as a morsel of food. 

What was the overwhelming force which thus in a mo¬ 
ment transformed thi§ splendid youth? Was it not the 
God-implanted instinct which impels a man to defend his 
■own hearth-stone? 

There were 896 students at Harvard in 1861, there were 
604 at the University of Virginia. Why was it that but 73 
out of the 896 joined the first army that invaded the South, 
while largely over half of the 604 volunteered to meet the 
invaders? It was manifestly this instinct of defense of 
Lome which gave to the Confederate service, from ’61 to ’65, 
more than 2,000 men of our University, of whom it buried in 
soldiers’ graves more than 400; while but 1,040 Harvard 
men served in the armies and navies of the United States 
during the four years of the war, and of these only 155 
lost their lives in the service.* 

Here, then, we have the essential, the distinctive spirit of 
the Southern volunteer. As he hastened to the front in the 
spring of ’61, he felt: “With me is Right, before me is 
Duty, behind me is Home.” 

♦Figures taken from catalogues of the two institutions, for 1860-61. 
Prof. Scheie’s Historical Catalogue of Students of the University of Vir¬ 
ginia, a careful statement by Prof. (Col.) Charles S. Venable of the 
same institution; and Francis H. Brown’s “Roll of Students of Harvard 
University Who Served in the Army or Navy of the United States 
During the War of the Rebellion,” prepared by order of the Corporation. 



CHAPTER V 


FIELD ARTILLERY IN THE ARMY OF NORTHERN VIRGINIA 

Inadequacy of General Equipment—Formation During First Two Years 
—High Character of Men Accounted For—An Extraordinary Story. 

The writer having served almost exclusively with the ar¬ 
tillery, what he has to tell must necessarily refer largely to 
that arm. Some general observations upon field artillery in 
the Army of Northern Virginia will therefore not be out of 
place. 

With the exception of a couple of long-range Whitworth 
guns, run in from England through the blockade and which 
I never saw, the artillery of General Lee’s army consisted 
of old-fashioned muzzle-loading pieces, for the most part 
12-pounder brass Napoleons and 3-inch rifles. Batteries were 
usually composed of four guns. For the equipment and 
operation of such a battery about seventy-five officers and 
men were required and say fifty horses. Every old artillery¬ 
man will recall the difficulty we experienced in keeping up 
the supply of horses. After Gettysburg it was our habit, 
when a piece became engaged, to send the horses to the rear, 
to some place of safety, preferring to run the risk of losing 
a gun occasionally rather than the team that pulled it. 

During the earlier stages of the war our artillery corps 
was very inadequately provided with clumsy ordnance and 
defective ammunition, manufactured for the most part with¬ 
in the Confederate lines; but as the struggle went on this 
branch of our service, as well as our infantry, was, to a 
constantly increasing degree, supplied with improved guns 
and ammunition captured from the armies opposed to us. 
We also learned to make better ammunition and more re¬ 
liable fuses, but never approached the Federal artillery either 
in these respects or in general equipment. 


FIELD ARTILLERY IN HIS ARMY. 


53 


For the first two years the armies of the Confederacy ad¬ 
hered to that very defective organization in which single 
batteries of artillery are attached to infantry brigades. Two 
evils resulted: the guns were under the command of briga¬ 
dier-generals of infantry, who generally had very little re¬ 
gard for artillery and still less knowledge as to the proper 
handling of it; and the scattering of the batteries prevented 
that concentration of fire in which, upon proper occasion, 
consists the great effectiveness of the arm. At and after 
Chancellorsville, however, the artillery of the Confederate 
armies, certainly that of the Army of Northern Virginia, 
began to be massed into battalions composed of, say, four or 
five batteries and fifteen to twenty-five guns, and these 
placed under the command of trained and experienced ar¬ 
tillery officers. From that time the artillery began to be 
really reckoned and relied upon in estimating the effective 
strength of the army. 

So much for the physical aspect of the artillery of Gen¬ 
eral Lee's army. A word now as to the character of the 
men who composed that corps. It will of course be admit¬ 
ted by every man of intelligence and candor who served 
under Lee, that his infantry was essentially his army; not 
alone because it constituted the bulk and body of its fight¬ 
ing strength, but also because it did the bulk and body of the 
fighting; and yet I think even the infantry itself would ad¬ 
mit that the artillery, though appearing to afford least op¬ 
portunity for personal distinction, yet furnished, in propor¬ 
tion to its numbers, perhaps more officers below the rank of 
general who were conspicuous for gallantry and high sol¬ 
diership than either of the other two arms. Their names rise 
unbidden to my lips—Pegram and Pelham, and Breathed 
and Carter, and Haskell, and many, many more. Every 
veteran of the Army of Northern Virginia is familiar with 
the splendid roll. 

If this claim be challenged, it may perhaps best be tested 
by asking this question: admitting that the fact be so, can 
any satisfactory explanation of it be suggested? 

For one, I answer unhesitatingly—yes, I think so; expla¬ 
nation amounting to demonstration. I believe that any man 


54 


FOUR YEARS UNDER MARSE ROBERT 


who looks into the matter without prejudice will be ready 
to admit that it is to be expected that artillery soldiers 
should excel in four great soldierly qualities— intelligence, 
self-possession, comradeship, loyalty to the gun. 

I will not stay now to prove that these qualities charac¬ 
terized our artillery in an eminent degree. The remaining 
chapters of this book will furnish abundant demonstration. 
As to intelligence, the chapter last preceding would seem to 
be all-sufficient; but apart from these positive exhibitions of 
intelligence and even culture of a high order, it is obvious 
that the very nature of the arm and its operation, its com¬ 
parative mechanical elaboration and complexity, and the 
blending of scientific knowledge and manual and bodily dex¬ 
terity required for its most effective use, must in large de¬ 
gree influence the original selection and the after develop¬ 
ment of the men of the artillery branch of the service. 

Again, an artilleryman, officer or private soldier, should 
be a broader-gauged man, especially as to his view and 
comprehension of battle and campaign, than an infantry¬ 
man of corresponding grade. An infantry company in the 
Army of Northern Virginia, during the latter part of the 
war, averaged certainly not over fifteen or twenty men, 
and covered but a small space on the line. A captain of 
infantry saw and touched little outside these narrow limits. 
Two or three strides, so to speak, would cover all of the 
line he was familiar with and responsible for, and he came 
in contact with no officer of wider domain and control, save 
his colonel, under whose eye and immediate direction he was 
always, save when on picket duty. 

A captain of artillery, on the contrary, was often separ¬ 
ated from his colonel by the stretch of several brigade 
fronts; for a battalion, as usually placed, would cover about 
the front of a division, and as he received no orders—after 
the organization of the artillery into battalions—from any 
infantry officer of less rank than a major-general, he was 
necessarily thrown in great measure upon his own resources 
in the management of a command which, including all its 
departments, was really of greater complexity and difficulty 
than an infantry brigade. 


FIELD ARTILLERY IN HIS ARMY. 


55 


I trust I may not be misunderstood, or regarded as at¬ 
tempting to magnify over-much myself or my office, when I 
say that all this applies with special force to the adjutant of 
an artillery battalion. This officer,—if he does his full 
duty, as adjutant of the command, as personal staff and 
aide to the commanding officer, and often as battalion chief 
of the line of caissons—familiarizing himself with the posi¬ 
tions of all the guns in battle, seeing that all are fully sup¬ 
plied with ammunition and anything and everything else 
that may be required, and passing from one to another as 
the exigencies of the fight may demand—covers as wide a 
stretch of the line, sees as much of the campaign, and comes 
as much into contact with officers of high grade as any of¬ 
ficer of his rank in the service. To-day, more than a genera¬ 
tion after that heroic Olympiad, it is a deep satisfaction to 
be able to say that I endeavored to do my full duty as adju¬ 
tant of Cabell’s Battalion—to attend to all my duties in this 
broader and fuller construction of them, and in battle, as 
far as possible, to be with that one of our batteries which 
was most heavily engaged. The campaign of 1864 was the 
only one in which I acted as adjutant of an artillery battal¬ 
ion from the outset to the end, and in consequence ray 
knowledge of that campaign is at once more comprehensive 
and more detailed than of any other, and what I have to tell 
of it is of greater value. 

The training of the artillery service in the development 
of imperturbable self-possession, in emergency and crisis, is 
self-evident and requires no comment. To appreciate it to 
the full, it was only necessary to look at one of our guns, al¬ 
ready overmatched, at the moment when a fresh gun of the 
enemy, rushing up at a wild gallop, and seizing a nearer and 
enfilading position, hurled a percussion shell, crashing with 
fearful uproar against our piece, and sweeping almost the 
entire gun detachment to the earth. At such a moment I 
have marked the sergeant or gunner of such a piece coolly 
disengage himself from the wreck and, stepping to one 
side, stoop to take his observations and make his calcula¬ 
tions, of distance and of time, free from the dust and smoke 
of the explosion; then, with ringing voice, call out to No. 6 


56 


FOUR YEARS UNDER MARSE ROBERT 


at the limber,—whose duty it was to cut the fuse,—“three 
seconds!” then, stepping back and bending over the trail 
handspike, doggedly aim his strained and half-disabled 
piece, as the undisabled remnant of the detachment step over 
the dead and dying bodies of their comrades, each in the 
discharge of the doubled and trebled duties now devolving 
upon him. The story I have to tell is full of kindred scenes. 

Another of the most marked and developing features of 
the artillery service is comradeship. 

I do not mean that lighter sense of happy and kindly as¬ 
sociation which certainly did characterize the artillery, of 
General Lee’s army at least, in very high degree. I refer now 
to an element far deeper and more powerful—the inter¬ 
dependence, the reliance upon each other, which inheres in 
the very nature of artillery service, and is indispensable of 
the effective working of the gun. 

The unit of the infantry is the man; of the cavalry, the 
man and horse; of the artillery, the detachment. While 
co-operation is a duty and in some degree a necessity in in¬ 
fantry service, yet a single infantry soldier operates his arm 
perfectly, indeed each one is complete in himself—more than 
one cannot operate the same arm at the same time. If one 
runs away he only renders himself useless, he deprives his 
country of his services alone. 

Not so with the artillery. It takes ten cannoneers (exclu¬ 
sive of drivers) to make a gun detachment. Each man has 
his special part to perform, but all indispensable to the per¬ 
fect working of the piece, so that each man is dependent 
upon all the rest. If one fails, all the rest are affected, and 
even the piece itself is rendered so far inefficient. Upon each 
man rests the responsibility for the effective service of the 
detachment and the gun. 

It is impossible not to perceive this distinction, and equally 
impossible not to admit the importance of it, in the develop¬ 
ment of a soldierly character. Again, I say, my story will 
not fail to furnish apt and impressive illustration. 

But the strongest sentiment, aye, passion, of the true artil¬ 
leryman is loyalty to the gun. 


FIELD ARTILLERY IN HIS ARMY. 


57 


The gun is the rallying point of the detachment, its point 
of honor, its flag, its banner. It is that to which the men 
look, by which they stand, with and for which they fight, by 
and for which they fall. As long as the gun is theirs, they 
are unconquered, victorious; when the gun is lost, all is lost. 
It is their religion to fight it until the enemy is out of range, 
or until the gun itself is withdrawn, or until both it and the 
detachment are in the hands of the foe. An infantryman in 
flight often flings away his musket. I do not recall ever hav¬ 
ing heard of a Confederate artillery detachment abandoning 
its gun without orders. 

Nor were the Federal artillerymen one whit behind in 
this loyal devotion to their pieces. One of the Haskells, who, 
as I remember, served on General McGowan’s staff, told 
me this vivid story. It seems almost incredible, yet I have 
no reason to question its truth; at all events, it is too good 
not to be told. 

In one of the late combats of the war, far away down on 
the right of our line, Pegram, passing ahead of his infantry 
support, had advanced his entire battalion against the enemy 
strongly entrenched—showering double-shotted canister into 
their infantry line and belching solid shot across the narrow 
ditch, in the very faces of their gunners and into the very 
muzzles of their guns. The Federal artillerymen, as was 
their wont, fought him fiercely, muzzle to muzzle—until 
McGowan’s infantry coming up, Pegram passed around the 
work, to the right and front, after the retiring Federal in¬ 
fantry, while the artillerymen and their pieces fell into Mc¬ 
Gowan’s hands. 

Most of the horses of the staff had been killed or dis¬ 
abled, and they had mounted Federal artillery horses from 
which in some cases the harness had not been removed, so 
that, as the staff officers rode to and fro delivering orders, 
the trace chains rattled and jingled merrily. 

The Federal gunners had done what they could on the in¬ 
stant to disable their pieces for the time, throwing away the 
lanyards and running the screws down low, so that the 
muzzles pointed high in the air. Having rooted out a few 
friction primers from a gunner’s haversack and fished a 


58 


FOUR YEARS UNDER MARSE ROBERT 


string or a handkerchief out of someone’s pocket, for a lan¬ 
yard, McGowan’s infantry managed to load one of the cap¬ 
tured pieces and, turning it in the direction of the retreating 
Federals, sent two or three shots whizzing over their heads, 
to seek the quartermasters and wagon camps in the rear. 

Meanwhile, the gunner of this particular piece, a tall, 
splendid-looking fellow, stood hard by, with his lip curled in 
scorn and his arms twitching convulsively; until at last, 
unable to stand it longer, he sprang into the midst of the 
blundering infantry and hurled them right and left, shout¬ 
ing: 

“Stand aside, you infernal, awkward boobies! Let me at 
that screw!” meanwhile whirling it rapidly up, until the gun 
came down into proper range. Then, seizing the trail hand¬ 
spike and aiming the piece, he sprang back, yelling out: 
“Now, try that! Let ’em have it! Fire!” 

Away flew the shell on its flight of death, until it tore 
through the line of his own friends. And he continued thus 
to direct the movement of the awkward squad of rebel can¬ 
noneers, and to sight and fire the piece, until the Federal in¬ 
fantry were out of range. Then, stamping his great foot 
upon the ground and gesturing wildly with his great clench¬ 
ed fist, he exclaimed : 

“Damned if I can stand by and see my gun do such shoot¬ 
ing as that!” 


CHAPTER VI 


FROM MANASSAS TO LEESBURG. 


March and Counter-march—Longstreet and Prince Napoleon—Leesburg 
—The Battle—The Mississippians—D. H. Hill—Fort Johnston. 

During the first few days of wild hurrah, uncertainty, and 
drift which followed our victory at Manassas, the guns of 
our battery were marched and counter-marched on scouting 
expeditions, first with one brigade and then with another. 
Our most noteworthy experience was with Longstreet’s, 
then known as the “Fourth Brigade,” in connection with 
which we were reviewed by Prince Napoleon at Centreville. 
The Prince did not strike me as an impressive man, but I 
recall the ease and confidence with which Longstreet handled 
both his artillery and infantry commands in the various ma¬ 
neuvers, and the riding of one of the young officers of his 
staff, who sat his beautiful thoroughbred superbly, dashing 
at full speed from point to point, leaping ditches and ob¬ 
structions without being once jarred in his seat, though 
using a flat English saddle and that without stirrups. I re¬ 
member, too, that it was so hot on the sun-scorched plain 
that the metal-covered tops of the ammunition chests ac¬ 
tually burned us cannoneers, as we mounted and dismounted 
at command, in the battery drill. 

The generals in the ranks, of whom there was, even at 
this early stage, an abundant supply, being still of the opin¬ 
ion that we ought to be and soon would be ordered to occupy 
Washington, regarded these several movements as in execu¬ 
tion of or preparation for that grand objective—an objec¬ 
tive which our commanding generals, for reasons doubtless 
satisfactory to themselves, seem to have soon given up—if 
indeed they ever seriously contemplated it. Within a short 
time all idea of a general offensive seeming to have been 


6o 


FOUR YEARS UNDER MARSE ROBERT 


abandoned, even by the staff contingent in the ranks, we 
were, on the nth of August, ’6i, ordered to Leesburg, 
under Brigadier-General N. G. Evans, of South Carolina, 
whose force consisted of the Thirteenth, Seventeenth and 
Eighteenth Mississippi Regiments, the Eighth Virginia In¬ 
fantry, our battery, and two companies of cavalry. 

Leesburg, the county seat of Loudoun, was at this time, 
perhaps, the most desirable post in our lines, on account of 
the character both of the country and its people—the former 
beautiful and rich, full of everything needed by man and 
beast, and the latter whole-hearted and hospitable, ready to 
share with us all they had. If ever soldiers had a more ideal 
time than we enjoyed at Leesburg, then I cannot conceive 
when or where it was. During the war, in hunger and 
thirst, in want and weariness and blood, our thoughts 
would often turn fondly back to our bucolic Loudoun para¬ 
dise. “When this cruel war was over” more than one of our 
boys went back there to get “the girl he left behind him” 
from ’6i to ’65, but would never leave again; and to-day 
many a grizzled, wrinkled, burdened man feels his heart 
grow young again and breaks into sunny smiles when a com¬ 
rade of the long ago slaps him on the back and reminds him 
of the good times we had at Leesburg. It was here we 
buried the crow, with honors literary and military; nor 
was this by any means the only camp entertainment with 
which we returned the many civilities extended to us by our 
fair friends in the good little burg. 

Of course, where there were so many brave knights all 
could not always succeed with the fair ladies. One of the 
defeated took this startling and original revenge upon his 
successful rival. “The captain with his whiskers” had re¬ 
peatedly run him off from a new-found Dulcinea, and this 
same result happening once more, our hero returned to 
camp weary and disgusted and threw himself down to sleep. 
Owing to some abnormal condition of mind or body, he was 
at the time much given to talking in his sleep and, dreaming 
himself on guard and inquiry made as to the commanding 
officer of the force, he electrified his half-slumbering com¬ 
panions by shouting out: 


FROM MANASSAS TO LEESBURG 


6l 


“Halt! You want to know who commands this battery, 
do you? Well, sir, General Susceptibility commands this 
battery, with a numerous staff of volunteer aides !” 

Poor fellow; but he was soon promoted to a captaincy 
and commanded a battery of his own, and doubtless avenged 
his grievous wrongs by perpetrating the like on his own boys 
upon occasion. Very recently he received his last promo¬ 
tion, having fought a good fight for many years as a faith¬ 
ful Christian minister. 

We saw no really hard service at Leesburg, though the ac¬ 
tivity of the force gradually increased. Our horses being in 
fine condition with the abundant forage, and the great, open 
fields affording a fine arena for it, we devoted ourselves as¬ 
siduously to battery drill. There was also considerable 
scouting up and down the river and some little firing across. 
One of our own men was wounded in one of these affairs and 
one or two cavalrymen killed. 

About the middle of October, however, General Evans 
withdrew his force and made a feint of retreat, which drew 
the enemy across to our side of the river. .Their plan of 
attack seems to have been well conceived and came very 
near being successfully executed. They landed in two 
columns, one at Edwards’ Ferry and another at Ball’s Bluff, 
considerably nearer to the town, the latter point, especially, 
being concealed by thick woods. Our little army returned 
in the very nick of time, but were misled as to the disposition 
and designs of the enemy, regarding the Edwards’ Ferry 
force as the main and dangerous body, and were either en¬ 
tirely ignorant of the crossing at Ball’s Bluff, or at least 
did not regard that as of any magnitude or moment. In¬ 
deed, as I recollect, the presence of these latter troops was 
discovered as it were by accident, just as they emerged from 
the forest, and were practically between us and Leesburg. 
But General Evans acted with vigor after the true condition 
of things was developed, rapidly concentrating his force to 
meet the advance from Ball’s Bluff; first checking and then 
staggering it, and finally driving the entire body back in 
bloody repulse upon and into the river, where many were 
drowned. 


62 


FOUR YEARS UNDER MARSE ROBERT 


To us it seemed a mistake not then to have attacked the 
Edwards’ Ferry force, but there may have been good reason 
for not doing so. The gallant Eighth Virginia, under its 
staunch Colonel, afterwards General, Eppa Hunton—since 
the war both a Congressman and a Senator of the United 
States from Virginia—took a prominent and honorable part 
in the fight, which was hotly contested and one of the most 
remarkable of the minor battles of the war in the dispro¬ 
portion of the enemy’s loss to the number engaged on our 
side. No part of the honor, however, belongs to our bat¬ 
tery, as the fighting took place in heavy woods, where it 
was impracticable to carry our guns. 

To me the battle of Leesburg, or Ball’s Bluff, as the Fed¬ 
erate called it, presented several points of rather special in¬ 
terest. First, the gallant and almost marvelous escape of a 
young Federal officer, named Crowninshield, who had been 
the strongest man on the Harvard boat crew about the time 
I held the like prominent position among the boating 
men of Yale. In the account of the battle, given by one of 
the Northern papers, I noticed, with great interest and pleas¬ 
ure, that Crowninshield, rather than surrender, swam the 
river and made good his escape, after his right arm had been 
shattered by a Minie ball. It was really a plucky and splen¬ 
did feat. 

Then, too, I very much enjoyed a newspaper report of a 
speech of Roscoe Conkling, delivered in the House of Rep¬ 
resentatives at Washington, upon this battle, in the course of 
which, extolling the valor of the Federal troops, he quoted 
from Tennyson’s “Charge of the Light Brigade” the lines: 

“Cannon to right of them, 

Cannon to left of them, 

Cannon in front of them, 

Volleyed and thundered.” 

This was at once amusing and aggravating, as we had 
felt peculiarly chagrined at not being able to fire even so 
much as one shot while the battle roared in the thicket in 
front of us. The enemy, on the contrary, did have and use 
at least one gun, a brass three-inch rifle, which was captured 
and turned over to our battery. 


FROM MANASSAS TO LEESBURG 


6 3 


A third incident was of a more personal nature. I had 
broken my knee-cap by a heavy fall during our feigned re¬ 
treat, and the limb had become as rigid as a bar of steel. My 
gun detachment was very anxious I should take part in the 
fight, and, of course, I was eager for it, as I had seen no 
service, and it had been agreed I should act as gunner and 
sight the piece. We changed position several times during 
the action, in the vain hope of finding a point from which 
we might fire upon the enemy without imperilling our own 
men, and I was carried from one to another of these posi¬ 
tions, or as near as might be, in an ambulance, driven by a 
half-witted youth named Grover, employed for that purpose. 

As I was getting out of the vehicle, for the third or fourth 
time, and preparing to hobble painfully up the hill to take 
my place at the gun, I said to him: “Grover, why don’t 
you go up yonder with me to fight? You are better able to 
do it than I am.” 

“Yes,” said he, “but there’s a differ.” 

“Well, what is it?” I asked; “what is the differ?” 

“Why,” said he, “you see, you ’listed ter git killed and I 
’listed ter drive a avalanche.” 

It is of course familiar to students of the financial history 
of the Confederacy, yet it may not be devoid of interest to 
the general public, to note that, in the South during the war, 
banks, municipalities, companies, and, even in some cases, 
individuals issued fractional notes or shin plasters which 
passed as currency supplementary to the Treasury notes is¬ 
sued by the Confederate Government. I am confident every 
surviving member of our battery, who was with us at Lees¬ 
burg, will recall the little “dog money” notes issued by the 
town, ornamented by a picture of a majestic Newfoundland 
<iog lying down before a massive iron safe supposed to be 
full of currency. No one, so far as I know, ever questioned 
the validity of Leesburg’s fiat money; certainly we Howit¬ 
zers experienced no difficulty whatever in getting rid of all 
we could get our hands upon. 

About the middle of November, pursuant to a policy of 
brigading together, so far as possible, troops from the same 
State, the Eighth Virginia Regiment was ordered back to 


6 \ FOUR YEARS UNDER MARSE ROBERT 

Manassas, and the Twenty-first Mississippi, commanded by 
Col. B. G. Humphreys, was sent to fill its place—the entire 
Mississippi brigade, consisting of the Thirteenth, Seven¬ 
teenth, Eighteenth and .Twenty-first Regiments, being then, 
or shortly after, put under the command of General Griffith, 
of that State, who was killed at Savage Station in June, ’62, 
when Barksdale, theretofore colonel of the Thirteenth, was 
made brigadier-general and took command of the brigade, 
which bore his name up to Gettysburg, where he met his gal¬ 
lant death. Thereupon Colonel Humphreys, of the Twenty- 
first, was promoted to the rank of brigadier, and in turn 
commanded and christened this fine body of soldiers. It 
may be well to mention that Colonel Featherstone, of the 
Seventeenth, was made brigadier in the spring of ’62, so that 
three out of the four original colonels of this brigade be¬ 
came generals, the fourth, Colonel Burt, of the Eighteenth, 
having been killed at Ball’s Bluff. I may also add that Gen¬ 
eral Humphreys was elected Governor of Mississippi shortly 
after the close of the war. 

For more than a year after the battle of Leesburg, we 
were closely associated with these sturdy fellows and be¬ 
came strongly attached to them; indeed, up to the very end, 
the two commands never crossed each other’s path without 
hearty cheers and handshakes. 

This Mississippi brigade was, in many respects, the finest 
body of men I ever saw. They were almost giants in size 
and power. In the color company of the Seventeenth Regi¬ 
ment, when we first met them, there were thirty-five men 
more than six feet one inch high, and in the Twenty-first 
there was one man six feet seven inches in height, and su¬ 
perbly formed, except that his shoulders were a trifle too 
square and too broad in proportion. They were healthy and 
hardy, even ruddy, which was surprising, coming as they did 
from a region generally regarded as full of malarial poison. 
They were bear hunters from the swamps and cane brakes 
and, naturally enough, almost without exception fine shots. 

As a body, they were very young men and brimful of 
irrepressible enthusiasm, equally for play and for fight. The 
laugh, the song, the shout, the yell of the rebel charge burst 


FROM MANASSAS TO LEESBURG 65 

indifferently from their lips; but in any and every case the 
volume of sound was tremendous. It was a common saying 
that the “sick men” left in Barksdale’s camp, when the brig¬ 
ade was away on duty, made more noise than any other full 
brigade in the army. The only comment I have to make 
upon this statement is that I cannot recall ever having seen 
one of them sick or “ailing” in any way, except when suffer¬ 
ing from hunger or from wounds. At times they seemed 
about as rough as the bears they had hunted, yet they were 
withal simple-minded and tender-hearted boys, and at Fred¬ 
ericksburg hundreds of them became Christians. 

I knew almost every man in the brigade and often at¬ 
tended their religious meetings. Many a time, after I be¬ 
came adjutant of our battalion of artillery, Col. H. C. Ca¬ 
bell’s, as I galloped past their lines awaiting the order to 
charge, my heart has been cheered and strengthened by a 
chorus of manly voices calling after me, “God bless you, 
Brother Stiles, and cover your head in the day of battle!” 
How could I help loving these simple, brave, great-hearted 
fellows. 

Early in December, ’61, General Evans was relieved of the 
command at Leesburg and sent, I think, to South Carolina, 
his native State, to take charge of some troops there, and 
Gen. D. H. Hill, of North Carolina, was put in his place. 
He was a brother-in-law of Stonewall Jackson and, like him, 
a thorough Christian and thorough Calvinist. That he was 
likewise a thorough soldier may be inferred, as the logicians 
would say, “a-priori and a-posteriori” from the two facts, 
that he was a graduate of West Point, and that he attained 
the rank of lieutenant-general in the Confederate service. He 
was, moreover, a man of intellect and culture, with a de¬ 
cided taste for scholarship and letters, having been, both be¬ 
fore and since the war, connected with educational institu¬ 
tions of high grade and a writer of books, both scientific and 
religious. 

Like Jackson he was, too, a born fighter—as aggressive, 
pugnacious and tenacious as a bull-dog, or as any soldier in 
the service, and he had a sort of monomania on the subject 
of personal courage. 


5 


66 


FOUR YEARS UNDER MARSE ROBERT 


It is certainly worthy of note that this fighting zeal is so 
frequently combined with a high degree of spiritual re¬ 
ligion. 

Almost countless stories are told of the grim courage and 
grit of General Hill. In the first Maryland campaign he 
held the pass at Boonsboro for many hours with a mere 
handful of troops against McClellan’s overwhelming num¬ 
bers, thus giving time for Jackson to complete his capture of 
Harper’s Ferry and join Lee at Sharpsburg. It is said 
that toward the close of the Boonsboro fight, riding down his 
short line, his men reported that they were out of ammuni¬ 
tion, and that the stern old North Carolina Puritan re¬ 
plied : “Well, what of it? Here are plenty of rocks!” 

His habit was, when his skirmishers were firing wildly, 
to ride out among them, and if he noticed a man lying down 
or behind protection and firing carelessly, he would make 
him get right up and come and stand out in the open, by his 
horse, and load his musket and hand it to him. Then he 
would crane his neck until he saw a Federal skirmisher, 
when he would point him out to his man, but would fire at 
him himself, not only taking long, portentous aim before 
pulling trigger, but making equally long examination after¬ 
wards to determine whether he had hit him; and he would 
continue and distribute these blood-curdling object-lessons 
until his men settled down to a style of firing that suited 
him. 

Very amusing accounts passed around the army about “old 
D. H.” every now and then “treating” the non-combatant 
officers of his staff—the quartermasters, commissaries, and 
doctors—to what he called “a little airing in a fight,” when 
he thought they stood in need of it, or heard that they had 
been “airing,” a little freely, their own martial experience 
and prowess. 

Occasionally, in his official reports, he gave the tartest 
and most amusing expressions to his strenuous views and 
standards of soldierly courage and devotion. I recall one 
in which, in commenting upon the flight of a body of cavalry 
before overwhelming numbers, he remarks incidentally, that 
it takes a good man to stand and fight against heavy odds. 


FROM MANASSAS TO LEESBURG 67 

when he has only two legs under him; but that if you put 
six legs under him to run away with, it requires the best 
kind of a man to stand and fight. 

In another report, in describing a stampede and the crush 
and jam of fugitives in the highway, he says, “Not a dog; 
no, not even a sneaking exempt, could have made his way 
through.” 

As early in the drama as the Leesburg campaign he had 
begun to indulge and exhibit these rather peculiar notions 
and habits. Soon after taking command, desiring to know 
the number, calibre, and character of the Federal guns 
across the river, he gathered a large escort and rode up and 
down the river bank in a manner calculated to attract the 
fire of artillery, and when the enemy accepted his invita¬ 
tion and the shell came singing over and buried itself in the 
earth hard by, he called for a pick and shovel, dismounted 
and dug it up with his own hands, apparently unconscious 
that other shells were shrieking and bursting about him and 
his improvised and somewhat nervous staff. Of course this 
impressed us no little; exactly how, it would be difficult to 
say. One thing, however, was clear—that this apparent un¬ 
consciousness of personal peril was in no degree “put on,” 
that our general was undoubtedly “to the manner born.” 

Our company had special reason for desiring to make a 
good impression upon General Hill. At the battle of Bethel, 
or “Big Bethel,” where he commanded a regiment and won 
the spurs and stars of a general, he had with him the other 
two companies of our “Howitzer Battalion,” which unfor¬ 
tunately never materialized in the field. We did not wish 
him to draw unfavorable comparisons and gave him no 
reason for doing so, though we had no opportunity, while 
under him, of distinguishing ourselves. 

He was a man of strong likes and dislikes, and in some 
way was led to notice and to conceive a decided liking for 
me. Not long after he assumed command he ordered Cap¬ 
tain Shields to send, I think, a sergeant and some fifteen or 
twenty men, of whom I was one, to take charge of Fort 
Johnston, a considerable, closed earth-work, on a command¬ 
ing eminence about a mile out of town, which mounted two 


68 


FOUR YEARS UNDER MARSE ROBERT 


or three siege pieces of rather clumsy construction, fired by 
friction primer like field pieces. In addition to this, we 
generally had one and, much of the time, two, of our field 
pieces also with us at the fort. About the same time, the 
general ordered about the same number of Mississippians— 
that is to say, enough for two gun detachments—to report 
at the fort and to be under my special charge. I have an 
indistinct recollection that I selected these men. The idea 
was that we light artillerymen should adapt our drill to the 
heavy guns and then teach the Mississippians the manual 
and use of both field and siege pieces, so that all of us could 
work effectually all the pieces in the fort. 

The Mississippians were glad to come. They liked the 
noise and smoke and uproar of the guns. There never were 
two such field artillery detachments as they made after a brief 
period of drill. They would shove the pieces up almost any 
hillside, however steep, and would even hold them against 
the recoil when inclined to roll too far back. We passed a 
good deal of time running up and down the river with the 
field pieces, the captain sometimes with us and sometimes 
not, appearing first on one commanding hilltop and then 
on another, and firing across at the railroad trains and canal 
boats on the other side. On two or three occasions we 
stirred up a hornet’s nest in the shape of Federal batteries 
which happened to be drilling in the neighborhood, and 
once were compelled to withdraw with more speed than 
dignity; but my irrepressible Mississippi artillerymen made 
fun of it all, actually playing leap frog down the steep Lou¬ 
doun hillside, under a galling fire, from perhaps eight or 
ten guns. I was quite an athlete at the time, having been 
considered the strongest man at Yale while there, and had 
reason to deem myself an expert in matters involving physi¬ 
cal achievement and endurance. I have no hesitation in say¬ 
ing that I never witnessed an exhibition of bounding, buoy¬ 
ant power and unshakeable bodily soundness and stamina that 
compared with this performance of the Mississippians. The 
men were all, or most of them, over six feet in height and 
averaged, I should say, over 200 pounds in weight, and yet 
they ran down the steep slope, keeping abreast of galloping 


FROM MANASSAS TO LEESBURG 69 

horses, and leaping over each other’s shoulders, the head of 
course inclined, but the column of the body almost up¬ 
right; and as the leaper would strike far below, with a jar 
calculated to jolt a man’s vital organs out of gear forever, 
he would instantly assume position again, with a shout, while 
two hundred pounds of yelling, human trap-ball would in 
turn execute the perilous flying leap over his head. 

The situation at Fort Johnston, from the view-point of 
rank, command, and subordination, was mixed and delicate 
enough already, though I had no real difficulty, with my own 
company officers, in keeping up my little imperium in im - 
perio. But just about the time matters had settled into work¬ 
ing order with the existing elements, a militia regiment from 
a neighboring county was orderd into the fort for the pur¬ 
pose of improving and strengthening, as well as more fully 
manning it. This regiment, as I remember, was afterwards 
broken up and the men entered as individual recruits in 
veteran regiments, as was the almost unvarying mode of 
recruiting in the Confederate service; but at this time—late 
winter of ’6 i-’ 2, or early spring of ’62—this regiment seems 
to have retained its original organization under its original 
officers. I have spoken of it as a militia regiment, as we all 
did at the time, but I do not know what its real status was. 
The regimental officers were of course jealous of us—pri¬ 
vate artillery soldiers seeming to be set over even infantry 
officers, and the general being in the habit of communicating 
with us directly in matters concerning the fort and every¬ 
thing in it. To add to the uneasiness and discontent, the 
idea got abroad that this small force was thus isolated with 
the view of sacrificing it in case the enemy should cross over, 
to enable the other troops to withdraw in safety. 

At one of the evening dress parades of the regiment, at 
which of course the colonel was in charge, I attempted, with 
his permission, to show the absurdity of this rumor, and at 
the same time to pour oil generally on the troubled waters; 
but a little before midnight one of my Mississippians, “Buck 
Denman,” a man marked even among those heroes for cour¬ 
age and power, who was corporal of the guard that night, 
came and woke me up with the startling intelligence that the 


70 


FOUR YEARS UNDER MARSE ROBERT 


“melish” were formed and about to leave the fort. I rose 
instantly and ordered Denman to call out his entire squad 
and have them rendezvous at once at the outlet of the fort 
with loaded muskets. 

He yelled like a Comanche as he sprang to execute the 
order, and, by the time I reached the centre of the parade, 
passing by the head of the regiment on the way, the bear 
hunters were at their posts “loaded for b’ar” or “melish,” 
as the case might be, and shouting for the battle. The 
“colonel commanding” hesitated what command to give, and 
I at once assumed his place and did not hesitate. The men 
were in column and ready to march out, but they front¬ 
faced readily at my command, and I briefly laid the situation 
before them, emphasizing—but never mind what I empha¬ 
sized, the moon gave light enough to shed a gleam on the 
musket barrels of the Mississippians formed right across the 
only outlet, and these added the emphasis; but I did appeal 
also to the better judgment and better feeling of the men 
and closed with an invitation to their colonel to call on 
General Hill with me in the morning. 

While I was speaking I noticed immediately in front of 
me, standing on a sort of irregular front line of officers, a 
remarkable and grotesque figure. He was a tall, gaunt man, 
dressed in an old Continental uniform or something very 
like it. I recall the cocked hat, blue, buff-faced coat, of that 
cut, fa’-top boots, and a drawn sword in his hand of about 
the length and model of a scythe blade. It was not a very 
bright night, but his whole attitude showed absorbed and 
sympathetic attention. I had hardly ceased when he stepped 
briskly toward me, saluted, wheeled and faced the regiment 
and his, the leading company, and uttered, in quite a sol¬ 
dierly tone, just these words: “Snickersville Blues, fall out 1 
Mr. Stiles is right, and I am going to stand by him!” The 
example was contagious, and in a few moments the strained 
situation was entirely relieved. 

In the morning General Hill decided that I was right, 
commended the course I had pursued, and said he would 
send for a commission for me (which I presume he forgot) ; 
but suggested that it might interest and conciliate the regi- 


FROM MANASSAS TO LEESBURG 71 

ment if we would pick out two or three detachments and 
drill them in the manual of the heavy pieces. We did so 
with admirable result, of course offering to the gallant cap¬ 
tain of the “Snickersville Blues” the place of gunner of the 
first detachment. The old fellow, whose name I think was 
Moore, took the greatest interest and delight in the drill and 
showed some proficiency at it; so that in a few days he 
asked me to allow him to drill his detachment before Gen¬ 
eral Hill, who rode out almost every evening to see how 
we were getting on. I never saw anything quite so irresist¬ 
ibly funny as Moore’s dress and bearing as he formed his 
detachment, marched them to the gun and put them in po¬ 
sition about it. He got on fairly well until a primer failed 
and he could not recall the appropriate command—“Don’t 
advance, the primer has failed!” 

As No. 2 first hesitated and then started to advance, 
Moore, gasping with excitement and stretching out his right 
arm deprecatingly toward the cannoneer, blurted out, “Don’t 
go up, the thing’s busted!” Of course there was an explo¬ 
sion, though not of the primer, but as Moore seemed so 
genuinely mortified, it was soon hushed. General Hill seem¬ 
ed to appreciate the situation, and assured the gunner that 
his improvised command answered every purpose and was 
far preferable, in such an emergency, to not saying anything 
because unable to recall exactly what to say. 

Soon after this, in the early spring of ’62, the General di¬ 
rected us to have a large number of flannel powder bags 
made up, a few for the heavy guns, but most of them of a 
size suited to our field pieces, and gave such additional 
orders as satisfied me that the army was about to abandon its 
present lines and take position somewhere in the low coun¬ 
try near Richmond. The young ladies of Leesburg had of¬ 
fered repeatedly to do anything they could for us, and so 
we held, for several successive nights, a regular sewing bee 
over these powder bags, which, as fast as made, were taken 
up to Fort Johnston and filled in the magazine there. We 
had a lively, lovely time, making the bags, but I felt all the 
while as if I were guilty of the vilest deception; for of 
course these sweet girls were led to believe these powder 


72 


FOUR YEARS UNDER MARSE ROBERT 


bags were to be used in their defense, while I well knew we 
would abandon them to their fate about as soon as the bags 
were finished, filled, and packed for transport. At last the 
time for our departure actually came, and a sad leave-taking 
it was, for some of these dear people had treated us as no 
strangers were ever treated before; and besides, we all felt 
not only the pain of parting but also something akin to the 
disgrace of desertion. 

With D. H. Hill, worship of Stonewall Jackson held a 
place next after and close alongside his religion. He had the 
greatest admiration for Jackson’s genius and the greatest 
confidence in his future. He honored me with frequent and 
sometimes very extended interviews; and as there was noth¬ 
ing else he so much delighted to talk about or I to hear, I 
absorbed much that prepared me for his brother-in-law’s 
marvelous career. Even at that early day, Hill predicted 
that if the war should last six years and Jackson live so long, 
he would be in supreme command. 

It is fair to add that the pure white star of Robert Lee 
had not yet fairly appeared above the Southern horizon 


CHAPTER VII 


THE PENINSULA CAMPAIGN. 

Reenlistment and Reorganization in the Spring of ’62—Gen. McClellan 
—The Peninsula Lines—The Texans—The Battle of Williamsburg 
—The Mud. 


We left Leesburg about the 7th of March, ’62, for Cul¬ 
peper C. H., which was the place of rendezvous of the army 
before taking up the line of march for the Peninsula, 
whither we were ordered to repair to meet McClellan. Only 
two things of interest occurred on the way—the reenlistment 
and reorganization of the battery and a hurried glimpse at 
our friends in Richmond. The former, as I remember, took 
place at or near Culpeper C. H., about the 15th of March, 
and deserves more than casual mention. 

In the spring of 1862, throughout our service, the men re¬ 
enlisting were allowed to elect their own officers; so that for 
weeks about this time the army, and that in the face of the 
enemy, was resolved—it is the highest proof of its patriot¬ 
ism and character that it was not also dissolved—into nomi¬ 
nating caucuses and electioneering meetings. This compli¬ 
ment, by the way, is as well deserved by the men voluntarily 
reenlisting and electing their own officers, on the Federal side 
as the Confederate, if, as I presume, the same system was 
adopted by the Federals. 

I do not say this is not the usual mode of organizing a 
volunteer army, at least in this country; nor do I deny that 
the result was better, on the average, than might have been 
anticipated, but it was bad enough. Our friend, Gen. D. H. 
Hill, in a report of a little later date, says, “The reorganiza¬ 
tion of the army, at Yorktown under the elective system, had 
thrown out of service many of our best officers and had 
much demoralized our army.” 


74 


FOUR YEARS UNDER MARSE ROBERT 


In short, the selection of military officers by the elective 
method is a monstrosity, an utter reversal of the essential 
spirit of military appointment and promotion. It ought to 
be enough to immortalize it as such that, about the time of 
or soon after the original enlistments, the men of one of the 
Virginia regiments, in the exercise of their volunteer right 
to choose their officers, protested successfully against the 
assignment of General, then Colonel, Jackson to command 
them. 

It is fair also to add that the result, in the case of our own 
company—as I have abundantly shown an exceptionally in¬ 
telligent corps,—so far as the newly-elected captain was con¬ 
cerned, could not have been more satisfactory, as he was a 
man of the noblest nature and every inch a soldier. But 
this was not by any means the case with all the officers elected 
by us. Our two preceding captains were promoted, the one 
to be colonel commanding “Camp Lee”—the camp of in¬ 
struction at Richmond—and the other, at a later date, to 
be surgeon of that post, with rank of major. 

We seemed to be in no sort of hurry to get at McClellan; 
that is, we took our time on the road, feeling sure, from past 
experience, that he would take his. Our army and people 
invariably regarded that general as “an officer and a gentle¬ 
man” and a fine soldier, too, except that he was a little slow 
and prone to see double as to the number of his foes. The 
Richmond Examiner, by far the most vigorous journal pub¬ 
lished in the South during the war, epitomized “little Mac” 
in the following graphic sentence, “Accustomed in peace to 
the indecent haste of railroad travel, McClellan adopted in 
war the sedate tactics of the mud turtle.” He certainly did 
seem to have a penchant for mud, Peninsula mud, Chjcka- 
hominy mud, James River mud—any sort of mud; but he 
was too much of a gentleman to “sling” any of it, even at 
us “rebels.” 

The only point of the march down at which we were made 
to hurry was the only one at which we would have de¬ 
murred to doing so if it would have done any good, and that 
was Richmond, where, as I remember, we arrived about the 
ioth of April, and left by steamer down James River a day 


THE PENINSULA CAMPAIGN 


75 


or two later. I remember, too, that as the boat left the 
shouting thousands on the shore and swept out into the 
stream our glee club burst into the rollicking stanzas of 
“Mynheer von Dunck”—a song as good in verse and in 
music as it is bad in morals: 

“Mynheer von Dunck, 

Though he never got drunk, 

Sipped brandy and water gaily; 

And he quenched his thirst 
With two quarts of the first 
To a pint of the latter, daily. 

Water well mingled with spirit, good store, 

No Hollander dreams of scorning; 

But of water alone he drinks no more 

Than the rose supplies 

When the dew drop lies 

On its bloom of a summer morning— 

For a Dutchman’s draft should potent be, 

Though deep as the rolling Zuyder Zee.” 

And as we steamed out of hearing of the pier the stout 
voices of the singers were publishing, with metrical and mu¬ 
sical elaboration, the somewhat shady proposition that— 

“A pretty girl who gets a kiss and runs and tells her mother, 

Does what she should not do and don’t deserve another.” 

These revelling, rollicking songs came later to be prime 
favorites with sundry brigadier, major and even lieutenant- 
generals in the Army of Northern Virginia, and they cheer¬ 
ed, too, many a comfortless camp and relieved many a 
weary march of the old battery. 

In due time we made our landing and found our place in 
the peninsular lines of Yorktown and Warwick River, which 
were admirably adapted to the purpose for which General 
Magruder designed and located them; namely, to enable a 
small body of troops to hold the position—but for occupa¬ 
tion by a large army they were simply execrable. There was 
scarcely solid ground enough accessible to afford standing, 
sleeping, or living room for the men. 


76 


FOUR YEARS UNDER MARSE ROBERT 


Our boys had their first taste of actual war in these abomi¬ 
nable lines. Soon after our arrival the enemy attempted a 
crossing in force. Our guns being called for, we made an 
inspiring rush for the point of attack and were loudly cheered 
by the long lines of waiting infantry as we thundered by 
with our horses at a wild gallop. We got in only at the end 
of the fight, but our pieces were soon placed in the works 
and in situations about as trying as any we ever occupied. 
Our positions were commanded by those on the other side, 
our earth-works were utterly insufficient, we were heavily 
outnumbered in guns, and the Federal sharpshooters were as 
audacious and deadly as I ever saw them. For the most 
part they were concealed in the tops of tall pine trees and 
had down shots upon us, against which it was almost im¬ 
possible to protect ourselves. When we attempted to do so 
by digging holes back of and beneath our works, the water 
rose in them and drove us out. Then, too, the enemy had 
opposite to us several rapid-firing guns of the earlier models, 
which we dubbed “the hopper mine,” “the putty machine,” 
etc., and which ground out a stream of bullets almost equal 
to the fire of a line of battle. The guns were not, how¬ 
ever, really effective, and I do not recall ever encounter¬ 
ing them again. But our boys showed excellent pluck and 
did some fine shooting, dismounting one of the guns of a 
Rhode Island battery which we had the luck of meeting sev¬ 
eral times during the war. 

The only relief we had from the sharpshooters was when 
the marvelous Texan scouts got to work upon them, which 
was as often as their “impudence” got to be unbearable. 
This was the first time we had met those greatest of all sol¬ 
diers, the Texas brigade. I question whether any body of 
troops ever received such a compliment as General Lee paid 
them in his letter to Senator Wigfall, written later in the 
war, in which he asked him, if possible, to go to Texas and 
raise another such brigade for his army. He said that the 
efficiency of the Army of Northern Virginia would be there¬ 
by increased to an incalculable extent, and that he would be 
relieved of the unpleasant necessity of calling on this one 
brigade so often in critical junctures. I have not the letter 


THE PENINSULA CAMPAIGN 77 

before me, but I have read it several times and feel substan¬ 
tially sure of its contents. 

In the present instance the work of these worthies appeared 
little less than miraculous. They were apparently uncon¬ 
scious of danger and seemed to bear charmed lives. When 
the pressure of the Federal sharpshooters became intolerable, 
the Texans would pass the word that it was time to go out 
“squirrel shooting.” Then they would get up, yawn and 
stretch a little, load their rifles and take to the water, disap¬ 
pearing from view in the brush. Then everything would be 
still a few minutes; then two or three shots, and the sputter 
of the sharpshooters would cease. After a while the Texans 
would straggle back, and report how many “squirrels” they 
had got. 

Notwithstanding this relief, or it may have been for the 
lack of it,—for our guns were separated by considerable dis¬ 
tances,—one of our detachments broke down utterly from 
nervous tension and lack of rest. I went in as one of the 
relief party to bring them out and take their places. It was, 
of course, after nightfall, and some of these poor lads were 
sobbing in their broken sleep, like a crying child just before 
it sinks to rest. It was really pathetic. The men actually 
had to be supported to the ambulances sent down to bring 
them away. 

Amongst the unpleasant experiences of these lines were the 
night attacks, or perhaps, to speak more accurately, I should 
say, the night alarms. Down in these swamps at night it was 
incredibly dark and musketry never roared and reverberated 
as terribly anywhere else. These exhibitions reached the 
dignity at least of fully developed “alarms.” Especially was 
this the case when, one black night, a sudden outburst of 
fire—infantry, artillery, machine guns and all—stampeded 
a working party of some two hundred negroes who had just 
begun the much-needed strengthening of our very inadequate 
fortifications. The working party not only fled themselves, 
but the frantic fugitives actually swept away with them a 
part of our infantry support. 

I was sent back to the drivers’ camp to see that the horses 
were harnessed and ready in case it should be necessary to 


7 8 


FOUR YEARS UNDER MARSE ROBERT 


withdraw our pieces, and I met a line or mass of troops ad¬ 
vancing to our support. Hearing some one call “Stiles!” I 
asked, “Who said ‘Stiles’ and who are you speaking to ?” A 
voice answered, “I called Stiles,” and another, close beside 
me, said, “He’s speaking to me. Stiles is my name. I’m 
Capt. Edward Stiles, of Savannah, Georgia.” I grasped his 
hand, unable to see him, and having only time to say, “Then 
I’m your cousin, Robert Stiles, of Richmond, Virginia. 
Look you up to-morrow.” Until that moment I did not 
know I had a relative in the Virginia army, knowing that 
some and supposing that all of my cousins were in the armies 
of the coast defense. 

It was, of course, well understood by all of us that the 
Federal commander, having complete control of the naviga¬ 
ble rivers, by virtue of his overwhelming naval power, could 
at any time turn either of our flanks or land a heavy force 
between us and Richmond, and that therefore our present line 
could not be a permanent one. We were not surprised, then, 
at receiving orders, about the 2d of May, to withdraw and 
march toward Richmond, which we did. 

The enemy followed, but not vigorously. My recollection 
is that our company was the rear battery during the next 
day and that we several times unlimbered our pieces, but 
never fired a shot; so the evening of the 4th of May found us 
on the Richmond side of Williamsburg, hitched up and 
ready to fall in behind our brigade. We heard firing in the 
rear, but thought little of it until a mounted officer rode up 
with orders from competent authority to bring up as rapidly 
as possible the first battery he could find ready hitched up, 
and so we passed rapidly back through Williamsburg, and 
became at once hotly engaged, doing good service, as we also 
did the next day. Indeed our action the first evening might, 
without much strain, be termed “distinguished.” The enemy, 
under a heavy fire from our battery and another, abandoned 
a three-inch rifled gun and a caisson of ammunition, and the 
general at whose orders we had entered the fight calling for 
volunteers to bring them into our lines, our boys volunteered 
and brought them off the field, using the captured gun with 
fine effect the following day. 


THE PENINSULA CAMPAIGN 


79 


Williamsburg was not in any sense a decisive battle, per¬ 
haps not designed to be so on either side. Upon our side 
certainly, perhaps upon both sides, it accomplished its limited 
purpose, which upon our part was to let General McClellan 
see that it would not be well for him to seriously interfere 
with or molest us in our “change of base,” or “retreat,” if 
one prefers that term, though, as above remarked, it cannot 
be contended that the line we were leaving could ever have 
been designed for permanent occupation. 

It is obvious, I say, that McClellan did learn the lesson 
we intended; for after Williamsburg our army was allowed 
to pursue its march very leisurely up the Peninsula—a con¬ 
siderable part of it stopping to finish the reenlistment and 
reorganization by the election of new officers. 

But it is not a satisfactory battle to contemplate, because 
the administering of this lesson cost too much in blood, and 
this because, as so often happens, some one blundered. Col. 
Richard L. Maury—son of Commodore M. F. Maury—and 
an exceptionally intelligent officer, who at the close of the 
fight commanded the Twenty-fourth Virginia, Early’s old 
regiment, the colonel and lieutenant-colonel having been 
shot down—has written a brief but strong memoir on this 
battle, from which it would seem well nigh impossible to 
'draw any other conclusions. 

He makes substantially the following points: 

General Magruder had built, and was commended for 
building, a chain of redoubts across the Peninsula from the 
York to the James, as a second line; Fort Magruder, a strong 
•closed work, about a mile from Williamsburg, on the main 
road running down the Peninsula, being the key of the entire 
line. The battle was fought in and from these fortifications, 
we occupying Fort Magruder, but, incredible as it may seem, 
not occupying the other works, and not even those within a 
short distance of the main road along which lay our route 
to Richmond. Indeed General Hancock was allowed, with¬ 
out firing a shot, to possess himself of one or more of these 
works, and yet the heaviest loss in the action was entailed in 
the attempt to dislodge Hancock, which failed. Several of 
the general officers, by whose apparent neglect all this hap- 


8o 


FOUR YEARS UNDER MARSE ROBERT 


pened, have publicly defended themselves by stating that 
they did not know and were not informed as to the location 
of these works. It seems to go without saying that they 
ought to have been informed. Furthermore, it is evident that 
if a single general officer upon our side was fully informed 
as to the entire line, it was General Magruder, who built it, 
and who, it seems, took no part in this battle. Indeed, as I 
remember, he had been sent on toward Richmond. As 
above intimated, it would seem impossible that all these facts 
should co-exist with prudence and generalship upon the part 
of all our leading officers. 

There is, however, one relief to the rather sombre picture. 
Our troops, whether prudently and wisely led or riot, cer¬ 
tainly fought well. “Hancock the Superb” was generous 
enough to say that the Twenty-fourth Virginia and the 
Fifth North Carolina, the two regiments which attacked his 
strong force in its fortified position, deserved to have the 
word “immortal” inscribed upon their banners. 

Two of the most vivid pictures in the gallery of my mem¬ 
ory are set in the framing of this battle—the one the most 
shocking instance of the inhuman demoralization of war, the 
other the most inspiring illustration of the noblest traits de¬ 
veloped by it. 

During a lull in the fighting our guns were withdrawn 
and were in column parallel to the road, in a common on 
the outskirts of the town, resting and awaiting orders, when 
a number of wounded Federal prisoners were brought up in 
an ambulance and laid temporarily on the grass, while a 
field hospital was being established hard by. Among them 
was a poor wretch, shot through the bowels, who was rolling 
on the ground in excruciating agony and beseeching the by¬ 
standers to put him out of his misery. There did not appear 
to be anything that could be done for him, at least not in 
advance of the coming of the surgeons, so I was in the act 
of turning away from the painful spectacle when a couple of 
Tureos, or Louisiana tigers, the most rakish and devilish- 
looking beings I ever saw, came up and peered over the 
shoulders of the circle of onlookers. 

Suddenly one of them pushed through the ring, saying: 
“Put you out of your misery? Certainly, sir!” and before 


THE PENINSULA CAMPAIGN 


8l 


any one had time to interfere, or even the faintest idea of his 
intention, brained the man with the butt of his musket; and 
the bloody club still in his hands, looking around upon the 
other wounded men, added glibly, “Any other gentleman 
here’d like to be accommodated ?” 

It is impossible to express my feelings. I fear that if I 
had had a loaded musket in my hands I should have illus¬ 
trated the demoralization of war a little further by shooting 
down in his tracks the demon, who suddenly disappeared, as 
a gasp of horror escaped the spectators. 

For the honor of human nature, let me quickly give you 
the other picture. 

At the crisis of the battle we were stationed in Fort Ma- 
gruder, as above explained, the key of our position. I was 
standing, sponge-staff in hand, awaiting the firing of my 
gun, the next piece to the left being a gun of the Fayette 
Artillery. As my eye fell upon it, No. i was sponging out, 
No. 3, of course, having his thumbstall pressed upon the 
vent. Suddenly I saw No. 3 stoop, clapping his right hand 
upon his leg below the knee, and then I saw him topple 
slowly forward, never, however, lifting his thumb from the 
vent, but pressing it down close and hard—his elbow strain¬ 
ed upward as his body sank forward and downward. The 
heroic fellow had been first shot in the calf of the right leg, 
and as he bent to feel th.at wound a bullet crashed through 
his skull; but his last effort was to save No. 1 from the loss 
of his hands by premature explosion as he rammed home the 
next charge. I have never witnessed more sublime faithful¬ 
ness unto death than was exhibited by the downward pres¬ 
sure of that thumb as it was literally dragged from the bole 
of the piece by the weight of the sinking body of the noble 
cannoneer. 

This incident reminds me of another which well illustrates 
how receptive and retentive of pictorial impression are the 
minds of men—especially men of a certain type—at mo¬ 
ments of intense excitement. It is this faculty, in great 
measure, which imparts special interest and value to the per¬ 
sonal reminiscences of men of this character. 

Nearly three years after the battle of Williamsburg, I 
think in March, ’65, entering the office of the provost-mar- 


6 


82 


FOUR YEARS UNDER MARSE ROBERT 


shal of the city of Richmond for the first and only time 
during the war, I found an officer, in a new uniform of a 
colonel of cavalry, in an unpleasant altercation with one of 
the employees of the office. As I approached he turned to 
me, saying: 

“It's a hard case, Major, that a veteran colonel of the 
Army of Northern Virginia is bearded in this way by a 
beardless boy of a provost-marshal’s clerk, and that he can¬ 
not have even the poor satisfaction of slapping his jaws as he 
is entrenched behind this partition.” 

While pouring out this complaint the Colonel gazed at 
me with increasing interest and, as he ceased—starting a 
little—said abruptly: 

“I have seen you before, sir!” 

“Yes, Colonel,” I replied, “or at least, I have seen you, and 
I recall just when and where it was; but as you are the rank¬ 
ing officer won’t you be good enough to say first, if you can, 
when and where you saw me ?” 

“Certainly, sir,” said he; “it was at the battle of Williams¬ 
burg, in May, ’62. You were then a private soldier in an ar¬ 
tillery company and were standing, bare-headed, at the angle 
of Fort Magruder with a sponge-staff in your hand as I led a 
charge of cavalry past the fort.” 

My recollection exactly coincided with his. The officer, 
I think, was Col. J. Lucius Davis, who commanded a body of 
Virginia troops at Charlestown or Harper’s Ferry during the 
John Brown raid; but, whoever he was, he was not a colonel 
at Williamsburg, but I think a captain; and, as I remember, 
then wore a brown-gray tunic belted around his waist, and 
his hair, which was then quite long, swept back from his 
forehead as he gallantly led his men, sabre in hand, at full 
speed against the enemy. 

We never met save on the two occasions mentioned and 
could not possibly have seen each other at Williamsburg 
more than a moment. The rank, dress, bearing—everything, 
indeed, save the essential personality of the two men—was 
entirely different at the two meetings, and yet neither of us 
felt the slightest hesitation as to mutual identification or the 
time, place, and circumstances of the first meeting. 


THE PENINSULA CAMPAIGN 


83 


The one feature of the march up the Peninsula was mud. 
Even the great “Mud turtle” himself must have been satiated 
with it. As for me, I had never imagined anything approxi¬ 
mating to it. The ground had been saturated by recent 
heavy rains, which seemed to have brought down with them 
myriads of diminutive green frogs, the only living organ¬ 
isms, except of course the mud turtle, which could enjoy the 
big lob-lolly puddles into which the road-bed had been churn¬ 
ed by the multitude of houghs and wheels and the feet of the 
trampling thousands. Our company wagon, containing a 
present supply of commissary and quartermaster stores and 
all our extra clothing, sank to the hubs and had to be aban¬ 
doned. We feared for the guns and could not think of wast¬ 
ing teams on wagons. The danger was really imminent that 
the guns themselves would have to be abandoned, and the 
captain instructed me to have at hand a haversack with 
hammer and spikes and to keep near the rear of the battery, 
and if a gun could not be dragged through the mud, then to 
“spike it” as thoroughly as I could, slip the trunnions from 
the sockets and let the piece drop into the deepest mud I 
could find, and mark the spot. By dint, however, of fine 
driving, and heavy lifting and shoving at the wheels, we 
managed to save our brazen war dogs, for which we were be¬ 
ginning to feel a strong attachment. 

The poor horses often sank to their bellies, and we were 
several times compelled to unhitch a stalled horse, tie a pro- 
longe around him, hitch the rest of the team to the rope and 
drag him out. I mean just what I say when I aver that I 
saw a team of mules disappear, every hair, under the mud, in 
the middle of the road. Of course they had first fallen, in 
their impotent efforts to extricate themselves, and they aft¬ 
erwards arose and emerged from their baptism of mud, at 
-once the most melancholy and the most ludicrous-looking 
objects that could be imagined. It was wretched, and yet 
it had its funny side. 

We mounted upon the gun and caisson horses, for the 
emergency, the very best men, regard being had to the single 
requisite of skill and experience in handling draft horses 
and heavy loads, and no regard whatever as to whether or 


8 4 


FOUR YEARS UNDER MARSE ROBERT 


not they had theretofore been battery drivers. In this way 
it. happened that two of the finest soldiers in the command 
were driving at my gun, the one the wheel team and the 
other the lead, there being at the time six horses to the 
piece. It was stalled, and two or three unsuccessful efforts 
having been made to start it, the wheel driver declared that 
it was the fault of the leader. The latter retorted, and the 
war of words waxed hot, until suddenly the wheel charioteer 
dismounted in the thigh-deep mud and, struggling up abreast 
of the lead team, dared the driver of it to get down and fight 
it out then and there. It is possible the other would have 
accepted the challenge if a glance down at his friend and 
foe had not brought the absurdity of the entire thing so 
vividly before him that he simply threw his head back in a 
burst of laughter, saying, “Why Billy, you must take me 
for an infernal fool, to expect me to get down in that infer¬ 
nal mud to fight you!” Whereupon the gentleman in the 
mud laughed, too, as did everybody within sight and hear¬ 
ing, and Billy struggled back to his wheelers, remounted, and 
with “a long pull, a strong pull, and a pull altogether”—out 
she came. 

Another gentleman—he who had “resigned” when all 
trunks were sent to the rear from Manassas—having gotten 
at the company wagon this day, just before it was aban¬ 
doned, had on a beautiful new suit of “Crenshaw gray,” and, 
thus arrayed, was making a perilous passage out in the woods 
parallel to the road, dodgipg behind the big pine trees and 
springing from tussock to tussock of swamp grass and 
bushes. The boys had been watching him for some time, 
but he begged so hard, by cabalistic signs, that they had not 
“told on him.” But finally the lieutenant saw him and called 
to him to come and get in the mud and help start a stalled 
gun. Of course he had to come, but he came very slowly, 
meanwhile beseeching the boys to “put on a little more steam 
and get the gun out!” 

But the fellows had now come to appreciate the fun of 
the thing, as had also the lieutenant, and he ordered them 
to do nothing until Jim should get down in the mud with 
them. He wriggled and squirmed, his comrades standing in 


THE PENINSULA CAMPAIGN 


85 


the mud about the gun jeering and jibing at him, as he 
mounted and walked upon a big pine log which projected out 
to the slough of despond in which the gun was stuck, till, get¬ 
ting about squarely over it, he stopped and begged once 
more; but the boys shouted derisively, and the lieutenant call¬ 
ed out, “Get down to it, sir; nobody’s going to shove a pound 
until you get in and shove with the rest!” Poor Jim! He 
lifted his foot and stamped it down in vexation on the wet 
bark, which parted and slipped from the smooth, slick bole 
of the tree, and down came Jim, with a great splash like the 
mules, hide and hair and Crenshaw gray, all into and under 
the mud. I don’t think I ever heard such a shout as greeted 
this “knight of the sorrowful figure” as he emerged, from his 
thighs up, the liquid mud dripping from every part of the 
upper half of his person. But it cured him and his suit as 
well, the beautiful Crenshaw gray thenceforward exhibiting 
a sickly, jaundiced, butter-nut hue, like the clothes some 
backwoods cracker regiments wore when they first came to 
Virginia. 

Only one other feature of our march up the Peninsula 
merits notice, and that was our almost actual starvation on 
the way. The cause of this was separation from our brigade, 
which was probably ten miles from Williamsburg before we 
were ordered to follow. In the condition of the roads al¬ 
ready described, catching up with any particular body of 
troops was of course out of the question. We really had 
nothing to eat for two days and nights, except, that, as we 
were compelled to impress corn for the horses—of course 
old, hard corn—we roasted a little of it for ourselves. 

On the third day we overhauled a commissary train, in a 
by-road we were traveling to escape the jam and the mud, 
and Captain McCarthy, making known the extreme need of 
his men, begged rations enough to give them just one meal; 
but the officer in charge answered: 

“I cannot issue you anything, Captain, except upon the 
order of General Griffith, your brigadier, or my commanding 
officer.” 

To which our captain replied: 

“General Griffith is somewhere between here and Rich¬ 
mond, I don’t know where your commanding officer is; but 


86 


FOUR YEARS UNDER MARSE ROBERT 


if you can’t give me anything, except upon the order of one 
of these two officers, then I can take what my men need, on 
my own order, and I’ll do it. Here, boys, drive a gun up here 
in the road ahead of this train, unlimber it and load it. Now, 
sir, you shan’t pass here without issuing three days’ rations 
for my men; but I’ll give you a written statement of what 
has occurred, signed by me!” 

We sprang with a shout to execute the Captain’s order, 
and in a few moments had our three days’ rations, cooking 
them in the few utensils we always kept with us, and soon 
made a good square meal. I suppose Captain McCarthy’s 
conduct was deemed justifiable, as no notice of a court- 
martial or a court of inquiry was ever served upon him. 

It was, however, some days before the supply departments 
were thoroughly organized, after the disorganization and 
paralysis of the fearful mud deluge, and meanwhile not only 
did we artillerymen once more come down to hard pan and 
hard corn, but one evening General Griffith, who was a 
charming gentleman, rode over to where our battery was 
parked, saying to our captain that he came to beg three fa¬ 
vors—a couple of ears of corn for himself, a feed for his 
horse, and a song from our Glee Club—to all of which he 
was made royally welcome, and he sat right down about our 
camp fire and roasted and ate his corn with us. 

The boys used to say, “ten ears to a horse, two to a man— 
which shows that a horse is equal to five men.” Later in the 
war this ratio was practically vindicated, for the supply of 
horses got to be in every sense a prime necessity with the 
field artillery of the Confederate armies. Many a time, dur¬ 
ing the campaign of ’64, have I heard artillery officers of the 
Army of Northern Virginia—belonging to different corps— 
meeting for the first time after heavy fighting, in which the 
commands of both had been engaged, exchange some such 
greeting as this: 

“Well, old fellow, how did you come out? How many 
horses did you lose? Lose any men?” 


CHAPTER VIII 


SEVEN PINES AND THE SEVEN DAYS' BATTLES 

Joseph E. Johnston—The Change of Commanders—Lee's Plan of the 
Seven Days’ Battles—Rainsford—the Pursuit—Playing at Lost Ball 
—“Little Mac’s Lost the Thrigger”—Early Dawn on a Battle-field— 
Lee and Jackson. 

I turn back a moment to the mud and the march up the 
Peninsula in order to relate a reminiscence illustrative of 
several matters of interest, aside from the mud, such as the 
state of the currency, the semi-quizzical character and bear¬ 
ing of the Confederate soldier and his marked respect for 
private property, as well as the practical limitations to that 
respect. 

The column had halted at New Kent Court House, a little 
hamlet in the great pine forest, then and now boasting not 
over a half dozen houses, in addition to the tavern and the 
temple of justice. The infantry had broken ranks and most 
of them were resting and chatting, seated or reclined upon 
the banks of the somewhat sunken road. On one side had 
been a large cabbage patch from which the heads had been 
cut the preceding fall, leaving the stalks in the ground, which 
under the genial spring suns and rains,—it was the middle 
of May,—had greened out into what I think are termed 
“collards” or “sprouts.” They were just what the soldiers 
longed for and required, and an enterprising fellow saun¬ 
tered up to the fence and offered an old woman, who stood 
near by, “a dollar for one of them green things.” 

The price was fixed not by the seller but by the purchaser 
and clearly under the combined influence of three considera¬ 
tions : he thought so much of the sprout, and so little of the 
dollar, and then that dollar was probably the smallest money 
he had. 


88 


FOUR YEARS UNDER MARSE ROBERT 


No sooner said than done, and by the time the fellow paid 
his dollar and began browsing upon his sprout, the fence, 
which was about breast high and a very flimsy affair, was 
lined with soldiers, each with his right arm extended toward 
the old woman, a one-ddllar Confederate Treasury note 
fluttering in his fingers. 

I can see and hear them now: “Here, miss, please let me 
have one; I’m a heap hungrier’n these other men.” “But, 
mother, I’m a sick man and such a good boy; you ought to 
’tend to me first.” And so it went; and so went the old 
woman, backward and forward, jerking the sprouts out of 
the ground with wondrous speed, and as fast as she gathered 
an armful, striding along the fence, distributing them and 
raking in the dollars. I never witnessed a brisker trade in 
cabbage; but the buyers were so eager and the pressure of 
the leaning men became so great, that the fence, the frail 
barrier between “tuum and meum” suddenly gave way, and 
quicker than I can tell it there wasn’t a sprout left in the 
patch. 

The men had no intention of breaking into the enclosure, 
but Providence having removed the fence, they followed up 
the Providential indications by removing the sprouts. It is 
not easy to say just what the purchasing power of these dol¬ 
lars was, but at that comparatively early date it is easy to 
see that the old woman, counting only the money she actually 
got, made an astounding sale of her entire crop of sprouts. 

At last we arrived and took our places in the outer line of 
defenses of Richmond, McClellan at first establishing his 
lines behind the Chickahominy—his base of supplies being 
White House, on York River;—but he soon threw across, 
that is to our side, the Richmond side, of the Chickahominy 
River and swamp, a considerable force, strongly fortifying 
its position. Still it was manifest, or seemed to be, that this 
force on the Richmond sjde was not strong enough, without 
drawing aid from the other side, to repel an attack by the en¬ 
tire army of Johnston. The water in the swamp suddenly 
rose and apparently cut off communication with the other 
side. Seven Pines was an attack upon the Federal force on 
the Richmond side of the stream and swamp, with the view 


SEVEN PINES AND THE SEVEN DAYS' BATTLES 89 

of .destroying it while it could not be reinforced from the 
main body beyond the stream, and, as is well known, Gen¬ 
eral Johnston was struck down and totally disabled just at 
the crisis of the action. 

When the commanding general of an army, especially upon 
the attacking side, is struck down while his plans are develop¬ 
ing, it is ordinarily not possible to say with confidence what 
would have been the result of the engagement if no such 
calamity had befallen the attacking force. Seven Pines is 
therefore what may properly be termed an indecisive, if not 
an abortive battle. While the determined fighting on the 
Confederate side probably contributed to delay a general 
advance by McClellan, thus giving time for Lee to get 
thorough hold upon his army, to acquire their confidence, to 
mature his plans generally, and in particular to arrange for 
the withdrawal of Jackson from the valley, yet it must be 
admitted that, as to the main design of the Confederates, the 
battle was a failure. 

To the Southern people and soldiers generally I have no 
doubt that, after the Seven Days' battles, Seven Pines seem¬ 
ed to measure up to its chief significance as the fight which 
resulted in removing Joseph E. Johnston from the command 
of the main army of the Confederacy and putting Robert E. 
Lee in his place; and I think likely it did so present itself to 
me at the time—indeed such is my recollection. But after 
the war it was my good fortune to be honored with the close 
and intimate friendship of General Johnston,—closer and 
more intimate than I ever enjoyed with any other of the 
great Southern leaders,—and the knowledge thus acquired of 
the man himself has imparted to the strange fatality of his 
being stricken down at Seven Pines, with the tenth honor¬ 
able wound received in battle, and to other unfortunate fea¬ 
tures of his career, a new and almost pathetic interest. 

I found him, both as a man and a soldier, to be very differ¬ 
ent from my previous estimate of him and in every way 
above that estimate; so that, in looking upon the glorious 
career of Lee, I have sometimes felt inclined to say in behalf 
of my friend what he never said for himself: “Who can 
tell ? It might have been!” And I do here say of him, in a 


9 o 


FOUR YEARS UNDER MARSE ROBERT 


single sentence, that as a trained, professional soldier, I do 
not believe he ever had his superior, if indeed his equal, on 
this continent; while as a man he was one of the purest and 
strongest I ever knew, and perhaps the most affectionate. 

When he ran for Congress in 1878 against the candidate 
of the combined Greenback and Republican parties, in a dis¬ 
trict including Richmond City and several counties, I was 
chairman of his campaign committee, and heartily wish it 
were appropriate to relate many of the incidents of the cam¬ 
paign so graphically illustrating how world-wide apart are 
the soldier and the politician. I must, however, be pardoned 
for telling one. 

He came to his headquarters one morning much outraged 
at what I had not heard of and, of course, had not author¬ 
ized—the erection of a banner, the night before, in the 
strongest manufacturing ward in the city, with his name 
upon it and some popular catchword or phrase squinting 
obscurely at “protection.” Upon military principles he held 
me responsible, but I soon ascertained that it had been done 
with the approval of a shrewd and experienced practical 
politician, who was also an influential member of the com¬ 
mittee, and I deemed it proper to call that body together. 
Upon their assembling the General took the matter entirely 
out of my hands, saying substantially and with very hot 
emphasis: “Gentlemen, this is a matter about which I do not 
propose to ask your advice, because it involves my conscience 
and my personal honor. I spoke yesterday, at Louisa Court 
House, under a ‘free-trade’ flag. I have never ridden ‘both 
sides of the sapling,’ and I don’t propose to learn how at 
this late day. That banner in Clay Ward comes down to-day 
or I retire from this canvass by published card to-morrow.” 

I have said he was the most affectionate of men. It will 
surprise many, who saw only the iron bearing of the soldier, 
to hear that we never met, or parted for any length of time, 
that he did not, if we were alone, throw his arms about me 
and kiss me, and that such was his habit in parting from or 
greeting his male relatives and most cherished friends. I 
will only add that he and General Lee entertained the most 
exalted estimate and opinion of each other, and when—very 


SEVEN PINES AND THE SEVEN DAYS* BATTLES 91 

late in the war, I think in February, 1865—Lee was made 
practical dictator and commander-in-chief of all the armies 
of the Confederacy, his very first act as such was the restora¬ 
tion of Joseph E. Johnston to the command of the army from 
which he had been removed when Hood was put in his place. 

As to the actual fighting at Seven Pines, we took part in 
it, yet not a very prominent part. Among the heroes of the 
day were our old Leesburg acquaintance, now Major-General 
D. H. Hill, whose division covered itself and its commander 
with blood and glory by one of the most dogged and deadly 
fights on record; and Captain, afterwards Colonel, Tom Car¬ 
ter, of the King William Artillery—yesterday the ideal ar¬ 
tillerist, the idol of the artillery of the Army of Northern 
Virginia, to-day an ideal Southern gentleman and the effi¬ 
cient Proctor of our State University. He is a cousin of 
Robert E. Lee, and combines more of the modesty, simplic¬ 
ity, purity, and valor of his great kinsman than any other 
living man of my acquaintance. 

At Seven Pines his battery made a phenomenal fight 
against an overwhelming weight of metal, and while Car¬ 
ter was sitting on his horse, with one foot in the stirrup and 
the other thrown across the pommel of his saddle, directing 
the undismayed fight of the undestroyed fragment of his 
battery, up rode our old friend “D. H.,” and in the midst 
of the awful carnage and destruction once more gave ex¬ 
pression to his monomania on the subject of fighting pluck 
by rising in his stirrups, saluting Carter and his men and 
declaring he had rather be captain of the King William Ar¬ 
tillery than President of the Confederate States. But, as 
'before said, this battle lives and will live in history, mainly 
as that which brought together for the first time the great 
Captain and the tattered soldiery, which ere long made the 
world ring with their fame. 

Lee’s grand plan of the Seven Days’ battles has been so 
often expatiated upon by able soldiers and writers that I 
could scarcely hope to add anything of intrinsic value to the 
discussion, so I propose to give what I have to say on the 
topic by way of post-bellum reminiscence. 

It has been noted with surprise how many distinguished 
and devout clergymen of the Church of England have admit- 


9 2 


FOUR YEARS UNDER MARSE ROBERT 


ted an irrepressible lifelong yearning for the army. My recol¬ 
lection is that this feeling crops out more or less in Kingsley; 
I am sure it runs like a refrain through Frederick William 
Robertson’s life and letters and appears perhaps in his ser¬ 
mons. Years ago, when he who is now Rev. Dr. Rainsford, 
of St. George’s, New York, was a glorious youth, he con¬ 
ducted a most successful mission in St. Paul’s Church, Rich¬ 
mond, Va., and drew some of us very close to him. .Toward 
the close of his work he asked Col. Archer Anderson and my¬ 
self to walk with him over the field of the Seven Days’ bat¬ 
tles, or as much of it as we could “do” on foot in a day. We 
started early one crisp February morning, the Colonel and I 
full of interest, but fearful that we could not keep up with the 
giant stride of our comrade, who was a trained athlete and 
one of the most heroic looking specimens of young manhood 
I ever beheld. We could not help thinking what a soldier 
he would have made. He was not then a Reverend Doctor 
and will, I am sure, pardon me for speaking of him on this 
occasion as “Rainsford.” 

We explained to him the positions of the two armies just 
before the opening of the battle; that Lee’s was on this, the 
Richmond side of the Chickahominy, which was generally 
impassable, except where the various roads, running out of 
Richmond like the spokes of a wheels crossed it; that Mc¬ 
Clellan’s army was on both sides of the stream or swamp, the 
bulk of it perhaps at this time on the Richmond side, but he 
had established and fortified free communication between his 
two wings; also that Jackson had been secretly drawn down 
from the Valley, and was now hovering, hawk fashion, some¬ 
where over beyond and back of McClellan’s right flank. , 

We next showed him the disparity in numbers, McClellan, 
by his own report, dated June 20, 1862, six days before the 
fighting began, having “Present for duty one hundred and 
five thousand eight hundred and twenty-five (105,825) 
men;” and as he was anticipating battle and calling lustily for 
reinforcements L his force was probably substantially in¬ 
creased during these six days; while Lee, as demonstrated by 
Col. Walter H. Taylor, adjutant-general of his army, and 
Gen. Jubal A. Early, both better informed on the subject 


SEVEN PINES AND THE SEVEN DAYS’ BATTLES 93 

than any other man ever was, had a little under or a little over 
eighty thousand (80,000) men present for duty when the 
fight opened, including Jackson’s forces. Moreover, our in¬ 
feriority in artillery, both as to number and character of 
guns, and as to ammunition also, was shocking. 

Meanwhile, we were walking out, to and across the Chick- 
ahominy, by the Mechanicsville turnpike or the Meadow 
Bridge road, the last of which debouched on the other side 
of the stream, a little to our left of the end of the Fed¬ 
eral lines, this being the road by which Lee’s first attacking 
column filed out on the 26th of June, ’62, swung around Mc¬ 
Clellan’s right flank and burst like an electric bolt upon the 
besieging army; the next and supporting column marching 
out by the Mechanicsville pike as soon as the first had cleared 
that road. 

We explained Jackson’s part in the plan, entering the fight 
the next day, on the left of the troops from Richmond and 
further in rear of McClellan’s right flank; our combined 
forces driving his right wing—which was most ably handled 
and gallantly fought—back upon his centre, from which 
troops had been already drawn to support his right. 

We pointed out to him the audacious boldness of Lee’s 
plan in withdrawing approximately two-thirds of his army 
from the lines about Richmond for this attack, so that 
barely 28,000 men were left between the Federal army and 
the Confederate capital. 

And when at last McClellan succeeded in getting all of 
his hard-pressed troops across to the Richmond side, this 
28,000 men, who had not yet been engaged, uniting with 
their victorious comrades, fell like an avalanche (or rather 
had orders to fall—nearly one-third of them did not fire a 
shot) upon his wornout, beaten, and dispirited troops, drove 
them pell-mell under the guns of their James River fleet, and 
but for failure of subordinates to carry out instructions Lee 
would undoubtedly have dictated terms of surrender to his 
gallant foe. 

We went out on the Meadow Bridge or Mechanicsville 
road, made the entire sweep, and returned, I think, by the 
Williamsburg road, the York River Railroad, and the New 


94 


FOUR YEARS UNDER MARSE ROBERT 


Bridge road—at all events, we could scarcely have walked 
much, if any, less than twenty-eight to thirty miles. It was 
one of the most enjoyable days of my life. Rainsford 
caught the plan instantly. Going over it in detail with him, 
upon the very spots, and climbing the very slopes up which 
Lee’s legions had rushed to the charge, he was thrilled to al¬ 
most savage excitement, yelling like a rebel infantryman, 
his giant frame and his grand face absolutely inspired. In 
his martial ecstasy he threw his great arms about us, hugging 
us, to our imminent peril; declaring he had loved us both at 
first sight, but could never forget us now, and that to have 
lived in and been a part of those days and those battles 
was enough to lift men forever to heroic stature and char¬ 
acter. 

Our battery was among the 28,000 men left on the Rich¬ 
mond side of the Chickahominy to defend the capital, to 
occupy the attention of McClellan’s troops on this side, and 
to prevent their recrossing to the aid of their hard-pressed 
comrades on the other; but the real defenders of the city were 
the men who stormed the bloody heights at Gaines’ Mill and 
the positions at Mechanicsville and Cold Harbor. We were 
in General Magruder’s command and were kept most of the 
time hitched up and ready to move at a moment’s warning. 
We were subjected now and then to fire from Federal bat¬ 
teries, suffered some loss of horses and equipment, and sev¬ 
eral of our men were wounded, but there were no serious 
casualties. 

On the 29th of June—Sunday, I think it was—General 
Magruder advanced his troops along the Nine-Mile road to 
feel the enemy, when the main thing that struck us was the 
immense quantity of abandoned stores and equipment, indi¬ 
cating how abundant had been the supply of the Federal 
forces and how great the demoralization of their retreat. 
Near Savage Station there must have been acres covered by 
stacks of burning boxes of bacon, crackers, and desiccated 
vegetables—“desecrated vegetables,” our boys called them. 
To us poorly-equipped and half-starved rebels it was a reve¬ 
lation. Here and elsewhere we picked up a few rations and a 
few choice equipments of various kinds, but had really 


SEVEN PINES AND THE SEVEN DAYS' BATTLES 95 

neither time nor taste for plunder. There were other me¬ 
mentoes of their stay and of their hasty departure left by 
“our friends the enemy,” not quite so attractive or appetizing 
—the ghastly leavings of numerous field hospitals; pale, 
naked corpses and grotesque piles of arms and legs. 

At one of these hospital stations we found an Irishman, 
whom we at first thought dying, as perhaps he was; but a 
swallow or two of the “crathur” revived him, and when, 
under such inspiration, did Pat ever fail to be communica¬ 
tive and witty ? He seemed to grasp the situation perfectly, 
and upon someone asking if the apparent flight might not 
after all be a trap—“Be dad,” said he, “an’ ef it’s a thrap, 
thin shure an f little Mac's lost the thrigger!” 

At or near Savage Station, I think on this 29th of June, 
our brigade commander, General Griffith, was killed. In a 
shower of projectiles turned loose upon us by an unseen foe, 
at least half a shell from a three-inch rifled gun lodged in his 
body. The marvel is he did not die instantly, but I noted the 
desperate clinch of his fingers and the pallor of his face as he 
clasped his hands back of his head after he had fallen from 
his horse. He was a genial and cultured gentleman and re¬ 
garded as a very promising officer. Colonel Barksdale, of 
the Thirteenth, at once took command of the brigade, and 
was soon commissioned brigadier. 

We then crossed over to the York River Railroad, upon 
which we had what our men called our “railroad gun,” a 
siege piece, mounted on a flat-car with an engine back of it, 
the front of the car being protected by rails of track iron 
fastened upon an incline, the mouth of the gun projecting a 
little as from an embrasure. As it puffed up, a number of 
Federal batteries, invisible to us, opened upon it and upon 
the troops, and General Magruder sent an order for our 
guns to cross the railroad by the bridge hard by and come 
into battery in the smooth, hard field beyond. 

We executed this dashing feat in gallant style, our cap¬ 
tain riding ahead, the pieces in a wild gallop and the men on 
a wild run following. Again we seemed to be in full sight 
of an unseen enemy, for the bridge was raked and swept by 
a fearful storm of shot and shell. I distinctly remember the 


9 6 


FOUR YEARS UNDER MARSE ROBERT 


shells bursting in my very face, and the bridge must have 
been struck repeatedly, the great splinters hurtling past and 
cutting the air like flashes of lightning, yet no one was hurt. 
Once across, we were ordered, “Forward into battery, left 
oblique, march!” which elaborate movement was executed by 
the men as if on drill. I could not refrain from glancing 
around, and was amazed to see every piece, limber, caisson 
and man in the exact mathematical position in which each 
belonged, and every man seemed to have struck the very at¬ 
titude required by the drill-book. And there we all stood, 
raked by a terrific fire, to which we could not reply, being 
really a second line, the first—consisting of infantry alone— 
having passed into the dense, forbidding forest in front, 
feeling for the enemy. And so it was most of the way to 
Malvern Hill. The country not admitting of the use of 
cavalry to any extent, we were constantly playing at “lost- 
ball,” and exposed to galling fire from a foe we could not see, 
and to whom we generally could not reply because our in¬ 
fantry was in the woods in front of us. 

But two things delighted us greatly: Our old brigade 
had been in our rear when we dashed across the bridge, 
taking the fire from them—and not only did they witness 
this, but they were lying down behind us when we executed 
the beautiful movement and made the staunch, soldierly 
stand in the open field beyond; so they cheered us enthusias¬ 
tically the next time we moved by them. 

The second morning after,—just as we came into battery 
on the field of Frazier’s (or Frayser’s) farm, where the 
fighting had closed after dark the preceding day, and which 
on that morning presented perhaps the most ideal view of a 
battlefield I ever saw—captured cannon, exploded limbers 
and caissons, dead horses and dead men scattered over it in 
most picturesque fashion,—Col. Stephen D. Lee, of the ar¬ 
tillery, afterwards lieutenant-general, rode out in front of our 
guns, took off his hat to us and said that he had witnessed 
and remarked upon our performance of two days ago, at the 
railroad bridge and in the field, as General Magruder had 
also; that nothing could have been more soldierly, and hav¬ 
ing thus shown ourselves equal to the most trying duty of the 


“SEVEN PINES AND THE SEVEN DAYS’ BATTLES 


99 


a ludicrous turn of the association of ideas, the old darkey 
minister’s illustration of faith flashed through my brain: 
“Bredren, ef de Lord tell me to jump through a stone wall, 
I’s gwine to jump at it; jumpin’ at it ’longs to me, goin’ 
through it ’longs to God.” The man before me would have 
jumped at anything the Lord told him to jump through. 

A moment later and his gaze was rewarded. A magnifi¬ 
cent staff approached from the direction of Richmond, and 
riding at its head, superbly mounted, a born king among 
men. At that time General Lee was one of the handsomest 
of men, especially on horseback, and that morning every de¬ 
tail of the dress and equipment of himself and horse was 
absolute perfection. When he recognized Jackson he rode 
forward with a courier, his staff halting. As he gracefully 
dismounted, handing his bridle rein to his attendant, and ad¬ 
vanced, drawing the gauntlet from his right hand, Jackson 
flung himself off his horse and advanced to meet Lee, 
little sorrel trotting back to the staff, where a courier secured 
him. 

The two generals greeted each other warmly, but wasted 
no time upon the greeting. They stood facing each other, 
some thirty feet from where I lay, Lee’s left side and back 
toward me, Jackson’s right and front. Jackson began talk¬ 
ing in a jerky, impetuous way, meanwhile drawing a dia¬ 
gram on the ground with the toe of his right boot. He 
traced two sides of a triangle with promptness and decision; 
then starting at the end of the second line, began to draw a 
third projected toward the first. This third line he traced 
slowly and with hesitation, alternately looking up at Lee’s 
face and down at his diagram, meanwhile talking earnestly; 
and when at last the third line crossed the first and the tri¬ 
angle was complete, he raised his foot and stamped it down 
with emphasis, saying, “We’ve got him;” then signalled for 
his horse, and when he came, vaulted awkwardly into the 
saddle and was off. Lee watched him a moment, the courier 
brought his horse, he mounted, and he and his staff rode 
away. 

The third line was never drawn—so we never “got” Mc¬ 
Clellan. 


L. of C. 


9 6 FOUR YEARS UNDER MARSE ROBERT 

shells bursting in my very face, and the bridge must have 
been struck repeatedly, the great splinters hurtling past and 
cutting the air like flashes of lightning, yet no one was hurt. 
Once across, we were ordered, “Forward into battery, left 
oblique, march!” which elaborate movement was executed by 
the men as if on drill. I could not refrain from glancing 
around, and was amazed to see every piece, limber, caisson 
and man in the exact mathematical position in which each 
belonged, and every man seemed to have struck the very at¬ 
titude required by the drill-book. And there we all stood, 
raked by a terrific fire, to which we could not reply, being 
really a second line, the first—consisting of infantry alone— 
having passed into the dense, forbidding forest in front, 
feeling for the enemy. And so it was most of the way to 
Malvern Hill. The country not admitting of the use of 
cavalry to any extent, we were constantly playing at “lost- 
ball,” and exposed to galling fire from a foe we could not see, 
and to whom we generally could not reply because our in¬ 
fantry was in the woods in front of us. 

But two things delighted us greatly: Our old brigade 
had been in our rear when we dashed across the bridge, 
taking the fire from them—and not only did they witness 
this, but they were lying down behind us when we executed 
the beautiful movement and made the staunch, soldierly 
stand in the open field beyond; so they cheered us enthusias¬ 
tically the next time we moved by them. 

The second morning after,—just as we came into battery 
on the field of Frazier’s (or Frayser’s) farm, where the 
fighting had closed after dark the preceding day, and which 
on that morning presented perhaps the most ideal view of a 
battlefield I ever saw—captured cannon, exploded limbers 
and caissons, dead horses and dead men scattered over it in 
most picturesque fashion,—Col. Stephen D. Lee, of the ar¬ 
tillery, afterwards lieutenant-general, rode out in front of our 
guns, took off his hat to us and said that he had witnessed 
and remarked upon our performance of two days ago, at the 
railroad bridge and in the field, as General Magruder had 
also; that nothing could have been more soldierly, and hav¬ 
ing thus shown ourselves equal to the most trying duty of the 


■SEVEN PINES AND THE SEVEN DAYS’ BATTLES 99 

a ludicrous turn of the association of ideas, the old darkey 
minister’s illustration of faith flashed through my brain: 
“Bredren, ef de Lord tell me to jump through a stone wall, 
I’s gwine to jump at it; jumpin’ at it ’longs to me, goin’ 
through it ’longs to God.” The man before me would have 
jumped at anything the Lord told him to jump through. 

A moment later and his gaze was rewarded. A magnifi¬ 
cent staff approached from the direction of Richmond, and 
riding at its head, superbly mounted, a born king among 
men. At that time General Lee was one of the handsomest 
of men, especially on horseback, and that morning every de¬ 
tail of the dress and equipment of himself and horse was 
absolute perfection. When he recognized Jackson he rode 
forward with a courier, his staff halting. As he gracefully 
dismounted, handing his bridle rein to his attendant, and ad¬ 
vanced, drawing the gauntlet from his right hand, Jackson 
flung himself off his horse and advanced to meet Lee, 
little sorrel trotting back to the staff, where a courier secured 
him. 

The two generals greeted each other warmly, but wasted 
no time upon the greeting. They stood facing each other, 
some thirty feet from where I lay, Lee’s left side and back 
toward me, Jackson’s right and front. Jackson began talk¬ 
ing in a jerky, impetuous way, meanwhile drawing a dia¬ 
gram on the ground with the toe of his right boot. He 
traced two sides of a triangle with promptness and decision; 
then starting at the end of the second line, began to draw a 
third projected toward the first. This third line he traced 
slowly and with hesitation, alternately looking up at Lee’s 
face and down at his diagram, meanwhile talking earnestly; 
and when at last the third line crossed the first and the tri¬ 
angle was complete, he raised his foot and stamped it down 
with emphasis, saying, “We’ve got him;” then signalled for 
his horse, and when he came, vaulted awkwardly into the 
saddle and was off. Lee watched him a moment, the courier 
brought his horse, he mounted, and he and his staff rode 
away. 

The third line was never drawn—so we never “got” Mc¬ 
Clellan. 


L. of 0. 


IOO 


FOUR YEARS UNDER MARSE ROBERT 


I question if any other man witnessed this interview— 
certainly no other was as near the two generals. At times I 
could hear their words, though they were uttered, for the 
most part, in the low tones of close and earnest conference. 
As the two faced each other, except that the difference in 
height was not great, the contrast between them could not 
have been more striking—in feature, figure, dress, voice, 
style, bearing, manner, everything, in short, that expressed 
the essential individuality of the two men. It was the Cava¬ 
lier and the Puritan in intensest embodiment. These two 
great roots and stocks of British manhood had borne each 
its consummate flower in the rank soil of the New World. 


CHAPTER IX 


MALVERN HILL AND THE EFFECT OF THE SEVEN DAYS* 
BATTLES 

Not a Confederate Victory—The Federal Artillery Fire—Demoralization 
of Lee’s Army—"McClellan Will Be Gone by Daylight”—The 
Weight of Lee’s Sword—Stuart—Pelham—Pegram—“Extra Billy” 
—To Battle in a Trotting Sulky—The Standard of Courage. 

I have said nothing as yet about Malvern Hill. No Con¬ 
federate cares to say anything about it. If McClellan had 
done nothing else in the seven days to stamp him as a gen¬ 
eral, and his army nothing else to stamp them as soldiers, 
beyond the selection of this position, the disposition and 
handling of his artillery, and the stubborn and successful 
stand there made, after and in spite of the experiences of the 
six days preceding—the reputation, both of general and 
of soldiers, might well be rested on this basis alone. If 
it had been a single, isolated battle, it would have gone 
down into history simply and squarely as a defeat for the 
Confederates, and even when viewed in its historic connec¬ 
tion, it must yet be admitted that all our assaults were re¬ 
pulsed and our pursuit so staggered that the Federal general 
was allowed to withdraw his army without being closely 
pressed. 

Upon our side there was not a single relieving feature in 
the picture. In the first place, the battle ought never to 
have been fought where it was. If the orders of Lee had 
been carried out, it would not have been, for McClellan 
would never have reached this position. The “third line, ,, 
of which Lee and Jackson spoke in the interview described in 
the preceding chapter, was never drawn. The understanding 
in the army at the time was that Huger and Holmes were 
to have drawn it, but that their commands lost their way in 


102 


FOUR YEARS UNDER MARSE ROBERT 


the almost trackless forest. In an address on “The Cam¬ 
paigns of Gen. Robert E. Lee,” delivered at Washington and 
Lee University in 1872, on January 19th, Lee’s birthday, 
Gen. Jubal A. Early says: “* * * Holmes’ command, over 
six thousand strong, did not actually engage in any of the 
battles.” But Col. Walter H. Taylor, in his “Four Years 
with General Lee,” published in 1877, already referred to, 
repeats three times—on pages 51, 53, and 54—that Holmes’ 
command numbered ten thousand or more; and it is obvious, 
upon a comparison of the two statements, that Early’s fig¬ 
ures, “over six thousand,” did not include Ransom’s brig¬ 
ade, which numbered thirty-six hundred. 

It seems incredible, yet it appears to be true, that Gen¬ 
eral Holmes was very deaf; so deaf that, when heaven and 
earth were shuddering with the thunder of artillery and the 
faces of his own men were blanched with the strain, he placed 
his hand behind his ear, and turning to a member of his staff, 
said, “I think I hear guns.” The story was told by one of his 
own brigadiers, and if anything approximating to it was 
true, then a great responsibility rests upon some one for put¬ 
ting an officer so far disabled in charge of troops,—espe¬ 
cially at such a crisis and for such a service,—whatever his 
other qualifications may have been. 

As before stated, General Lee left but twenty-eight thou¬ 
sand men on the Richmond side of the Chickahominy when 
he crossed to the other side to attack McClellan, and of 
course looked to these fresh troops, when his victorious but 
decimated and worn-out soldiers had driven the enemy into 
their arms, to fall upon the Federal general and gather the 
fruits of victory. But here are more than one-third of these 
fresh troops, and the very ones Lee had arranged should 
cut off the retreat of his gallant foe, that never got into ac¬ 
tion at all, and McClellan was permitted to reach and oc¬ 
cupy the strong position which saved his army and cost the 
lives of thousands of ours. And even this was not all. Ma- 
gruder, a most vigorous officer, to whose command we were 
attached, lost his way and thus delayed the attack and gave 
McClellan further time for his dispositions. And when at 
last we did attack, it was in a disconnected and desultory 


EFFECT OF THE SEVEN DAYS' BATTLES IO3 

fashion, which even to a private soldier seemed to promise 
no good result. But I cannot give a fairer or better idea 
of our view of the battle than by quoting from pages 48, 49 
of Colonel .Taylor's admirable book: 

From these extracts I think it will be clear to the candid reader that 
the retreat to the James River was a compulsory one, and due to a defeat 
then acknowledged by General McClellan himself. 

The fighting, however, was not invariably attended with success to 
the Confederates; notably, the defense of Malvern Hill by the Federals 
was in favor of the latter, which result was as much due to the misman¬ 
agement of the Confederate troops as to the naturally strong position 
occupied by the Federals and their gallantry in its defense. 

Considerable delay was occasioned in the pursuit from the fact that 
the ground was unknown to the Confederate commanders. On this occa¬ 
sion General Magruder took the wrong route and had to be recalled, 
thereby losing much precious time; and when after serious and 
provoking delay the lines were formed for attack, there was some mis¬ 
understanding of the orders of the commanding general, and instead of 
a spirited, united advance by the entire line, as contemplated, the 
divisions were moved forward at different times, each attacking inde¬ 
pendently, and each in turn repulsed. Moreover, owing to the peculiar 
character of the ground, artillery could not be advantageously placed to 
aid the assaulting columns; whereas the Federal batteries, strongly 
posted and most handsomely served, contributed in a very great degree 
to the successful stand made by McClellan’s retreating army at Malvern 
Hill. 

I have characterized the foregoing as a fair statement, 
as it certainly is, and yet even this fails to convey an ade¬ 
quate impression of the stunning and temporarily depressing 
effect of this battle upon our army. As to my own expe¬ 
rience and feelings, the revelation I am about to make may 
be a damaging one, yet I have no desire to sail under false 
colors, and then, too, my own case may serve to confirm and 
in part to explain the remarkable statements below made as 
to the sudden and fearful deterioration in the condition of 
our army which this battle, for the time, effected. 

Three of the guns of the old battery were put in action 
against McClellan’s majestic aggregation of batteries, by 
way of at least making a diversion in favor of our assaulting 


104 FOUR YEARS UNDER MARSE ROBERT 

infantry, a diversion which I presume we to some extent 
accomplished; for I never conceived anything approximating 
the shower and storm of projectiles and the overwhelming 
cataclysm of destruction which were at once turned upon our 
pitiful little popguns. In the short time they existed as ef¬ 
fective pieces they were several times fired by fragments of 
Federal shell striking them after the lanyard was stretched 
and before it was pulled; and in almost less time than it takes 
to tell it the carriages were completely crushed, smashed, and 
splintered and the guns themselves so injured and defaced 
that we were compelled to send them to Richmond, after the 
battle, to be remoulded. 

We were put in action, too, after a long, hot run. I was 
as sound and strong as human flesh could well be, and yet 
my lungs seemed to be pumped out, my brain reeled and my 
tongue clave to the roof of my mouth, which was burnt so 
dry that I experienced great difficulty in swallowing. Never¬ 
theless, I managed to do my part in serving my gun, until, 
in a few moments, it was completely disabled, when I fell to 
the earth, a horror of great darkness came upon me, and the 
only distinct impression I can recall is that I felt I would be 
glad to compromise on annihilation. 

When I roused myself from this semi-stupor or swoon 
the detachment seemed to have disappeared, but in a few 
moments I found most of the men. I remember catching by 
the collar one who had dropped down, “all in a heap,” in an 
unnecessarily exposed position on the projecting root of a 
large tree and jerking him up; when on the instant a shell 
tore to pieces the root upon which he had been seated, and 
yet he sank down again but a step or two from the spot. It 
was the first battle in which members of the company had 
been killed outright. The wonder is that any survived who 
were working these three pieces; but I suppose it is to be 
accounted for by the fact that the guns were quickly disabled 
and put out of action. 

According to his own report of June 20, 1862, McClellan 
had three hundred and forty pieces of field artillery. I see 
no reason for doubting that a very large proportion of these 
were massed upon Malvern Hill. Nothing human can long 


EFFECT OF THE SEVEN DAYS' BATTLES IO5 

withstand the fire of such a mass of artillery concentrated, 
as the Federal guns at Malvern Hill were, upon very short 
attacking lines of infantry. Colonel Taylor says divisions 
were marched forward at different times, each attacking in¬ 
dependently and each in turn repulsed. I think it was even 
worse than this, and that in some cases single brigades ad¬ 
vanced to the attack and were almost literally swept back¬ 
ward by what seemed to be the fire of a continuous line of 
battle of artillery. 

The effect of these repeated bloody repulses can hardly 
be conceived. One fearful feature was the sudden and awful 
revulsion of feeling among our soldiers, inspired by six days 
of constant victory and relentless pursuit of a retreating foe. 
The demoralization was great and the evidences of it palpa¬ 
ble everywhere. The roads and forests were full of strag¬ 
glers; commands were inextricably confused, some, for the 
time, having actually disappeared. Those who retained suf¬ 
ficient self-respect and sense of responsibility to think of the 
future were filled with the deepest apprehension. I know 
that this was the state of mind of some of our strongest and 
best officers; in fact, I do not know of any general officer in 
the army, save one, who did not entertain the gloomiest fore¬ 
bodings, and I recall hearing at the time, or rather a day or 
so afterwards, substantially the same story of that one which 
within the last few years and a short time before his own 
death was related by Dr. Hunter McGuire, Jackson’s medical 
director, a man whom of all men he loved and trusted next 
after his great chief, Robert Lee. I quote from an address 
first delivered by Doctor McGuire at Lexington, but repeat¬ 
ed several times afterwards by special request: 

At Malvern Hill, when a portion of our army was beaten and to some 
extent demoralized, Hill and Ewell and Early came to tell him that they 
could make no resistance if McClellan attacked them in the morning. It 
was difficult to wake General Jackson, as he was exhausted and very 
sound asleep. I tried it myself, and after many efforts, partly suc¬ 
ceeded. When he was made to understand what was wanted he said: 
“McClellan and his army will be gone by daylight,” and went to sleep 
again. The generals thought him mad, but the prediction was true. 

The Hill here referred to is probably not our old friend 
“D. H.,” but A. P. Hill, a more brilliant soldier, yet, per- 


io 6 


FOUR YEARS UNDER MARSE ROBERT 


haps, not so peculiarly distinguished for imperturbable grit. 
The story illustrates two of the greatest and most distin¬ 
guishing traits and powers of Jackson as a general: he did 
not know what demoralization meant, and he never failed to 
know just what his adversary thought and felt and proposed 
to do. In the present instance, not only did all that Jack- 
son^ said and implied turn out to be true, that McClellan was 
thinking only of escape, and never dreamed of viewing the 
battle of Malvern Hill in any other aspect, but in an incred¬ 
ibly short time our army had recovered its tone and had 
come to take the same view of the matter. Indeed, as I be¬ 
lieve, nothing but another untoward accident prevented Mc¬ 
Clellan’s surrendering his entire army to Lee, notwithstand¬ 
ing his successful defense at Malvern Hill. The matter will 
be found circumstantially set out in Colonel Taylor’s book, 
pages 41-44, substantiated and confirmed by a full extract 
from General Stuart’s manuscript of “Reports and Notes on 
the War,” and also by extracts from the report of the “Com¬ 
mittee on the Conduct of the War,” and is in outline as fol¬ 
lows : 

Stuart, Lee’s chief of cavalry, following up McClellan’s 
movements after Malvern Hill, from the heights above West- 
over, overlooked the entire Federal army huddled together 
in the river bottoms of and adjacent to Westover planta¬ 
tion, apparently in a state of utter disorganization and un¬ 
preparedness, and he could not resist the temptation of drop¬ 
ping a few shells among them, which produced a perfect 
stampede among the troops and wagons, but at the same 
time had the effect of calling the attention of the Federal 
commanders to the fact that the position of their army was 
utterly untenable without command of the heights from 
which these shells had been fired, and they immediately sent 
a heavy force to take possession of them. Stuart at once in¬ 
formed General Lee and received word that Jackson and 
Longstreet were en route to support him; but again the 
guides proved incompetent, and Longstreet was led six or 
seven miles out of the way, and Stuart, after resisting as 
long as he could, was compelled to yield possession of the 
heights, which were promptly occupied and fortified by an 


EFFECT OF THE SEVEN DAYS* BATTLES IO7 

adequate Federal force, and McClellan’s army was, for the 
first time, safe from successful attack. 

After having for the third time traced the failure of the 
plans of the Confederates to the incompetence or to the de¬ 
linquency of guides,—in the misleading of Holmes and 
Huger, of Magruder, and now of Longstreet,—it seems 
proper to remark that the entire region which was the theatre 
of the Seven Days’ battles is, for the most part, covered by 
heavy pine forests and cypress swamps, and these traversed 
by many wood roads, or paths rather, undistinguishable the 
one from the other. The confusing character of the country 
is well illustrated by the fact that the last time I went there, 
with a party of survivors of our old battery, with the view, 
if possible, of identifying certain positions occupied by our 
guns in the campaign of ’64, we had two guides born and 
reared in the neighborhood and who professed to be per¬ 
fectly familiar with the country and with the positions we 
desired to find; and yet these men insisted upon leading us 
astray, and would have done so, but that my recollection and 
my instinct of locality were so opposed to their views that I 
simply refused to be misled. Unassisted and unaccompanied 
1 found the first position sought, the rest of the party, with 
the guides, wandering around for hours and finally working 
around to me. But it should be remembered that the generals 
who were misled by guides, to the disarrangement and 
defeat of General Lee’s perfectly arranged plans, so far at 
least as I have reason to believe, had never been in the region 
before. 

Yet, once more. “Stuart, glorious Stuart,” as Colonel 
Taylor justly calls him, while his boyish indiscretion in firing 
into the huddled masses of the enemy from Evelington 
Heights, before informing General Lee of the situation, was 
apparently the cause of the loss of another great opportunity 
—yet it should not be forgotten, in this connection, that the 
great plan of the Seven Days battles owed its inspiration, or 
at least its completion and perfection, to the information de¬ 
rived from Stuart’s marvelous ride around McClellan’s en¬ 
tire army just in advance of Lee’s attack, more than to any 
other source outside the imperial intellect of the Commander- 


io8 


FOUR YEARS UNDER MARSE ROBERT 


in-Chief himself. Stuart was a splendidly endowed cavalry 
leader, his only fault being a tendency to indulge too far his 
fondness for achievements that savored of the startling, the 
marvelous, and the romantic. 

One more general reflection: Whatever effect the Seven 
Days’ battles may have had upon other reputations, Federal 
or Confederate—and there were upon our side generals 
whose names stood high upon the roster of our main army 
when these operations began, but never again appeared upon 
it after they closed—yet there is one name and fame which 
these seven days gave to history and to glory, as to which 
the entire world stands agreed, and all the after chances and 
changes of the war but expanded the world’s verdict. When 
we contemplate Lee’s great plan and the qualities of leader¬ 
ship which these operations revealed in him, we know not 
which most to admire—the brilliance, the comprehensiveness, 
or the almost reckless audacity of the scheme and of the man. 
It is a singular fact, and one which seems to demand expla¬ 
nation, that the prominent impression which Lee invariably 
seems to make is that of roundness, balance, perfection; and 
yet unquestionably his leading characteristic as a general is 
aggressive audacity. Take for example his leaving but 
28,000 of 80,000 men between McClellan and Richmond, 
and with the other 52,000 crossing a generally impassable 
stream and attacking McClellan’s 105,000 in entrenched po¬ 
sitions. Mayhap old Jubal Early, who knew Lee and knew 
war as well as any other man on either side, has the right of 
it and suggests the true explanation when he says, speaking 
of this very operation: “Timid minds might regard this as 
rashness, but it was the very perfection of a profound and 
daring strategy.” 

And when we attempt to measure the effect of these 
Seven Days’ battles—when we note that within less than 
one month from the day he took command of an army with 
which he had had no previous personal connection, Lee had 
completely secured its confidence and correctly estimated its 
capabilities, had conceived and perfected his great plan and 
every detail essential to its successful execution, had begun to 
put it into operation and actually delivered his first great 


EFFECT OF THE SEVEN DAYS' BATTLES IO9 

blow; when we note further that within a week after that 
blow was struck Richmond was entirely relieved and within 
a few weeks more Washington was in serious peril, and 
the United States Government had called for three hundred 
thousand more men; when, we say, all this is considered, we 
may well ask when did the weight of one great Captain's 
sword, only this and nothing more, cause the scales of war 
to dip with such a determined, downward sag? 

One of the most important features of these seven days of 
battle was that it was the first prolonged wrestle of the Army 
of Northern Virginia, the struggle that really gave birth to 
that army; that gave it experience of its own powers, co¬ 
hesion, character, confidence in itself and in its great com¬ 
mander—proper estimate of its great opponent, the Army of 
the Potomac, and its commander. Then, too, these days 
of continuous battle tested the individual men, and especially 
the officers of the army, winnowing the chaff from the wheat 
and getting rid of some high in command who did not catch 
the essential spirit of the army or assimilate well with it, or 
bid fair to add anything of value to it; at the same time this 
week of continuous battle brought to the front men who had 
in them stuff out of which heroes are made and who were 
destined to make names and niches for themselves in the 
pantheon of this immortal army. 

Among those in my own branch of the service who came 
prominently to the front, besides Tom Carter, who never lost 
the place he made for himself at Seven Pines in the affec¬ 
tionate admiration of the artillery and of the army, were the 
boy artillerists Pegram and Pelham, both yielding their 
glorious young lives in the struggle—Pegram at the very 
end, Pelham but eight months after Malvern Hill. The lat¬ 
ter, an Alabamian, was commander of Stuart’s horse artil¬ 
lery, devotedly loved and admired by his commanding gen¬ 
eral, the pride of the cavalry corps, one of the most dashing 
and brilliant soldiers in the service, though but twenty-two 
years of age when he fell. He was knighted by Lee him¬ 
self in official report as “the gallant Pelham.” 

The other, Pegram, was a more serious and a more power¬ 
ful man, who came of a family of soldiers who had rendered 


no 


FOUR YEARS UNDER MARSE ROBERT 


distinguished service, both in the army and navy, prior to 
the war; an elder brother, a graduate of West Point and a 
singularly attractive man, rising to the rank of major-general 
in the Confederate service, and also losing his life in battle. 
The younger brother, the artillerist, a student when the war 
began, enlisted as a private soldier in a battery raised in the 
City of Richmond, which he commanded when the Seven 
Days’ battles opened, rendering with it signal and distin¬ 
guished service. Eventually he rose to the rank and com¬ 
mand of colonel of artillery, and was recommended for ap¬ 
pointment as brigadier-general of infantry, General Lee say¬ 
ing he would find a brigade for him just as soon as he could 
be spared from the artillery; but meanwhile he fell in battle 
at Five Forks in the spring of ’65, even then hardly more 
than a stripling in years. 

He had always been such a modest, self-contained and 
almost shrinking youth that his most intimate friends 
were astonished at his rapid development and promotion; 
but it was one of those strongly-marked cases where war 
seemed to be the needed and almost the native air of a young 
man. He was, in some respects, of the type of Stonewall 
Jackson, and like him combined the strongest Christian faith 
and the deepest spirituality with the most intense spirit of 
fight. 

As commander of an artillery battalion he built up a 
reputation second to none for effective handling of his guns, 
his favorite method, where practicable, being to rush to close 
quarters with the enemy and open at the shortest possible 
range. He admitted that it seemed deadly, but insisted that 
it saved life in the end. When stricken down he lived long 
enough to express his views and feelings, briefly but clearly, 
with regard to both worlds, and there never was a death 
more soldierly or more Christian. 

Another, a very different and very racy character, who was 
a good deal talked about after and in connection with the 
fighting around Richmond in ’62 was old “Extra Billy,” ex- 
Governor William Smith, of Virginia, whom I mentioned 
as prominent among the Southern members in the Congress 
of ’59~’6 o. He was one of the best specimens of the politi- 


EFFECT OF THE SEVEN DAYS' BATTLES 


III 


cal general, rising ultimately to the rank of major-general; a 
born politician, twice Governor of the Commonwealth,— 
once before and once after this date,—already beyond the 
military age, yet one of the most devoted and enthusiastic 
soldiers in the service. As a soldier he was equally distin¬ 
guished for personal intrepidity and contempt for what he 
called “tactics” and for educated and trained soldiers, whom 
he was wont to speak of as “those West P’int fellows.” 

It is said he used to drill his regiment at Manassas, sit¬ 
ting cross-legged on the top of an old Virginia snake fence, 
with a blue cotton umbrella over his head and reading the 
orders from a book. On one occasion he was roused by the 
laughing outcry, “Colonel, you’ve run us bang up against the 
fence!” “Well, then, boys,” said the old Governor, looking 
up and nothing daunted; “well, then, of course you’ll have to 
turn around or climb the fence.” 

In ’62 this story was current about him,—though I do not 
vouch for the truth either of this or of that just related,— 
that he was ordered to carry a work and to take his com¬ 
mand through the abattis in front of it, reserving their fire. 
The regiment started in, the old Governor intrepidly riding 
in advance. The abattis swarmed with sharpshooters and his 
men were falling all about him, but they followed on hero¬ 
ically. At last they appealed to him, “Colonel, we can’t 
stand this, these Yankees will kill us all before we get in a 
shot.” It was all the old hero wanted and he blazed forth: 
“Of course you can’t stand it, boys; it’s all this infernal tac¬ 
tics and West P’int tomfoolery. Damn it, fire! and flush the 
game!” And they did, and drove out the sharpshooters and 
carried the work. 

My own dear father is one of the prominent figures in my 
recollections of that summer about Richmond. He was fond 
of horses, an excellent judge of them, and used to ride or 
drive the very best that could be found. I say “ride or 
drive.” He was then between sixty : five and seventy years 
of age and, though vigorous and enthusiastic, found it very 
comfortable to drive sometimes; but his selected vehicle was 
at once the most unclerical and unmilitary that could well 
be imagined—a regulation skeleton “trotting sulky.” He 


112 


FOUR YEARS UNDER MARSE ROBERT 


kept his saddle at our battery and his habit was, when we 
were not actually fighting or on the move, to return to Rich¬ 
mond at night, coming down in the morning with a big 
market basket strapped under his sulky full of bread and 
good things. His approach was generally heralded by the 
shouts of the soldiers who followed; when, looking up the 
road, we would see him, often standing on the shafts, scat¬ 
tering biscuit and reading aloud the latest telegrams. Hun¬ 
dreds of men would sometimes follow him to our camp, and 
then he would have prayers with them and make a brief re¬ 
ligious address. 

Coming in this way one morning he did not find us; the 
battle was on and we had gone to the front. As he could not 
get his saddle, he kept right on in his sulky, hoping to over¬ 
take us. In some way he managed to pass through and get 
ahead of the second line and went on, actually between the 
first and second lines of battle, until his further progress 
was obstructed by a line of works which fiad been captured 
by the first line, when he was forced to turn back, amidst a 
storm of ridicule from the second line: 

“That’s right, old man; this ain’t no place for you, nor for 
me neither, if I could only git my colonel to think so!” 

“Say, mister, won’t your buggy carry double?” 

“Haven’t you got a place for me ?” 

“Oh, please, sir, take me with you! I ain’t feeling so 
mighty well this morning. I’m powerful weak, right now.” 

Father always followed the Scripture rule of “answering a 
fool according to his folly,” and so he jeered back at them, 
telling them “good-by,” but saying he’d be back in a minute 
—as he actually was, riding, bareback and blind bridle, and 
passing right ahead with the troops. I have heard of fol¬ 
lowing a fox hunt in one of these sulkies, but I venture to 
say this is the very first time a man ever entered battle in one. 

It will at once occur to the reader as remarkable that father 
was not arrested. He was, a few days later, at Malvern Hill, 
by order of Gen. Rans. Wright, of Georgia, and a staff of¬ 
ficer, as I recollect, of General Armistead, told me that he 
was directed to arrest him on one of the earlier battle-fields 
of the Seven Days, and made the attempt; that up to that 


EFFECT OF THE SEVEN DAYS' BATTLES II3 

time he had regarded himself as a pretty daring rider and 
scout, but that father, whom he did not then know, led him 
such a chase as he had never before had, and that he re¬ 
turned to his general and reported that he didn’t believe there 
was any harm in that old fellow, though he was certainly a 
crank, and if he got killed it would be his own fault; but 
that, unless positively so ordered, he didn’t propose to get a 
bullet through his brain following that old fool right up 
to the Yankee skirmish line. 

It must be remembered that my father was a Christian 
minister, devoted to the soldiers, and a sort of chaplain- 
general among them. He was ready to whisper the conso¬ 
lations of religion in the ear of a dying man, to help the lit¬ 
ter bearers, or to carry a wounded man off on his horse. Then, 
too, he was well known to many of our generals to whom, 
by the way, he carried a vast amount of information gath¬ 
ered on his daring scouts ahead even of our skirmishers. I 
myself heard two or three of the most prominent generals 
say that it was their belief my father had seen more of the 
fighting of the Seven Days, from start to finish, than any 
other one man in or out of the army. I was of course deeply 
anxious about him, but he could not be controlled, and my 
belief was then, and is now, that the Federal skirmishers 
often refrained from firing upon him simply because they did 
not care at the time to expose their position. 

Many of our soldiers knew him, especially the Georgians, 
Virginians and Mississippians. Georgia was his native 
State. In his early days he had done a great deal of 
evangelistic work in all parts of it, and many young men and 
boys in the army had heard their parents speak of him. I 
remember one evening, after a most impressive sermon to 
Cobb’s or Cummings’ brigade, overhearing a lot of soldiers 
talking at a spring, when one of them, anxious to appear a 
little more familiarly acquainted with the preacher than the 
rest, said, “I’ve heard my mother talk of the old Doctor 
many a time. I reckon the old fellow’s given me many a 
dose of physic for croup.” 

An incident occurred, on or near the Nine-Mile road, 
some time before the week of battle opened which is strongly 


8 


114 FOUR YEARS UNDER MARSE ROBERT 

illustrative at once of my father’s faith and of the childlike 
simplicity of the great bulk of our soldiery. Two companies, 
I think from South Carolina, were supporting a section of 
our battery in an advanced and somewhat isolated position. 
About the middle of the afternoon father drove down from 
Richmond, and after he had distributed his provisions and 
talked with us a while, proposed to have prayers, which was 
readily acceded to. Quite a number of men from the neigh¬ 
boring commands gathered, and just as we knelt and my 
father began his petitions the batteries across the way sent 
two or three shells entirely too close to our heads to be com¬ 
fortable—I presume just by way of determining the object 
of this concourse. 

I confess my faith and devotion were not strong enough 
to prevent my opening my eyes and glancing around. The 
scene that met them was almost too much for my reverence 
and came near being fatal to my decorum. Our Carolina 
supports, like the rest of us, had knelt and closed their eyes 
at my father’s invocation and, simple-hearted fellows that 
they were, felt that it would be little less than sacrilege to 
rise or to open them until the prayer should be completed; 
and yet their faith was not quite equal to assuring them of 
God’s protection, or at least they felt it would be wise and 
well to supplement the protection of heaven by the trees and 
stumps of earth, if they could find them, and so they were 
actually groping for them with arms wide extended but 
eyes tight closed, and still on their knees. 

I hardly know what might have been the effect upon me 
of this almost impossibly ludicrous scene had I not glanced 
toward my father. As was his habit in public prayer, he 
was standing; his tall, majestic figure erect and his wor¬ 
shipful, reverent face upturned to Heaven. Not a nerve 
trembled, not a note quavered. In a single sentence he com¬ 
mitted us all to God’s special keeping while we worshipped; 
and then, evidently, he did worship and supplicate the Di¬ 
vine Being without the slightest further consciousness of 
the bursting shells, which in a few moments ceased shriek¬ 
ing above or about us, and our little service closed without 
further interruption. And then it was beautiful to observe 
how these simple-hearted boys gazed at my father, as if in- 


EFFECT OF THE SEVEN DAYS* BATTLES H5 

deed he had been one of the ancient prophets; but I heard 
some of them say they liked that old preacher mighty well, 
but they didn’t just feel certain whether they wanted him 
around having prayers so close under the Yankee guns; that 
he “didn’t seem to pay hardly enough attention to them 
things.” 

Colonel Brandon, father of my Yale classmate of that 
name, who was a captain in the regiment, was lieutenant- 
colonel of the Twenty-first Mississippi. He was a dignified, 
majestic-looking officer and a rigid disciplinarian, but an 
old man and very stout and heavy. I do not recollect 
whether Colonel Humphreys was present at Malvern Hill, 
but Brandon certainly went in with his regiment when 
the brigade, as I remember unsupported, made repeated 
-quixotic efforts to capture the Federal guns massed on the 
hill. They were exposed to the fire I have already described, 
and of course suffered bloody repulse. Colonel Brandon had 
his ankle shattered while the regiment was advancing in the 
first charge. On the way back his men proposed to carry 
him with them to the rear, but he refused. He was sitting 
up and pluckily applying his handkerchief as a tourniquet 
above the wound, and he simply said: “Tell the Twenty- 
first they can’t get me till they take those guns!” 

When the line passed him on the second charge, Brandon 
put his hat on his sword, held it up and waved it, cheering 
the regiment on, but in a few moments the bleeding remnant 
staggered to the rear again, and again they came for their 
colonel, insisting that they must carry him with them. The 
old soldier actually drew his revolver, declaring that he 
would shoot down any man .who laid hands upon him, and 
he repeated his former message: “Tell the Twenty-first they 
can’t get their colonel till they take those guns!” 

Again the charge swept by the prostrate old man, who 
waved his sword and his hat, urging his men up the awful 
slope; but when again they returned to the rear utterly 
broken and shattered, the old hero had fainted and the litter 
bearers bore him off the field. 

I saw him in Richmond a few days later. His leg had 
been amputated below the knee. He was doing wondrous 
well physically, but was full of deep dissatisfaction, mortifi- 


Il6 FOUR YEARS UNDER MARSE ROBERT 

cation and rage about the battle. I admitted the gross mis¬ 
management and was saying something in extenuation, 
when the old fellow broke in: 

“Oh! it is not mismanagement that hurts me, sir; it is 
cowardice—the disgraceful cowardice of our officers and 
men.” 

I was astounded, and protested that I saw nothing of this, 
when he broke out again: 

“Saw nothing of this, sir? Why, I saw nothing else! 

There is General-,” mentioning a man I never heard 

mentioned on any other occasion save with admiration for 
his courage and devotion. “Why, sir, with my own eyes I 
saw him perceptibly quicken nis pace under fire and that 
right before the men. And I saw him visibly incline his 
head, sir, and that right in the presence of the men. He 
ought to be shot to death for cowardice. ,, 

1 confess I was utterly confounded. I had myself seen 

General - repeatedly passing and repassing a knoll 

more fearfully torn by artillery fire perhaps than any other 
spot of earth I ever looked upon. His men were behind it— 
he passed over it and in front of them. My recollection is 
that officers were not mounted. Of course he quickened his 
pace, partly because his presence was required first at one 
end of the line and then at the other; but the marvel to me 
was that he lived at all. As to the inclination of his head, 
all I saw was that instinctive inclination, equally natural 
under a heavy fire and a heavy rain. When I recalled the 

scene and the heroic conduct of General-, I remember 

saying to myself, 

“What is the true standard of courage ?” 

There were a number of Yale men in the Twenty-first 
Mississippi, among others two brothers, Jud. and Carey 
Smith. We used to call Jud. “Indian Smith” at Yale. I 
think it was at Savage Station, when the Seventeenth and 
Twenty-first Mississippi were put into the woods at night¬ 
fall and directed to lie down, that Carey Smith, the younger 
brother, putting his hand in his bosom, found it covered with 
blood, when he withdrew it, and saying: “What does this 
mean?” instantly died. He had been mortally wounded 
without knowing when. 





EFFECT OF THE SEVEN DAYS' BATTLES H7 

Judson Smith went almost deranged; yes, I think alto¬ 
gether deranged. He bore his dead brother out of the woods. 
His company and regimental officers proposed to send the 
body to Richmond in an ambulance and urged Judson to go 
with it. He refused both propositions. He kept the body 
folded to his bosom, and all through the night his comrades 
heard Judson kissing Carey and talking to him and petting 
him, and then sobbing as if his heart would break. Next 
morning he consented to have his brother’s body sent to 
Richmond, but refused to go himself. When the regiment 
moved he kissed Carey again and again, and then left him, 
following the column all day alone, allowing no one to com¬ 
fort him or even to speak to him. So that night he lay 
down alone, not accepting the proffered sympathy and min¬ 
istrations of his friends, and resumed his solitary march in 
the morning. 

That was Malvern Hill day, and when the regiment, on 
its first charge, stopped ascending that fearful slope of 
death and turned back, Jud. Smith did not stop. He went 
right on, never returned and was never seen or heard of 
again. 

The family was one of wealth and position in Mississippi, 
the father an old man, and having only these two boys. 
When he heard of the loss of both almost in one day he 
left home, joined Price’s army as a private soldier, and at 
Iuka did just as his eldest son had done at Malvern Hill, 
which was the last ever seen or heard of him, and the family 
became extinct. 

Walking over the field of Malvern Hill the morning after 
the battle, I saw two young Federal soldiers lying dead, side 
by side, their heads upon the same knapsack and their arms 
about each other. They were evidently brothers and enough 
alike to be twins. The whole pathetic story was plainly evi¬ 
dent. One had first been wounded, perhaps killed, and when 
the other was struck he managed to get to his dead or dying 
brother, placed the knapsack under his head, and then lying 
down by him and resting his head on the same rude pillow, 
slipped his dying arms around his brother’s body and slept 
in this embrace. 


CHAPTER X 


SECOND MANASSAS—SHARPSBURG-FREDERICKSBURG 


Not at Second Manassas or Sharpsburg—A Glimpse of Richmond in 
the Summer of ’62—Col. Willis, of the Twelfth Georgia—Jackson in 
the Railroad Cut at Manassas—Sharpsburg the Hardest Fought of 
Lee’s Battles, Fredericksburg the Easiest Won — The Mississippi 
Brigade Entertains a Baby—A Conscript’s First Fight—Magnifi¬ 
cent Spectacle When Fog Curtain Rose—Aurora Borealis at Close 
of the Drama. 

I was not with the Army of Northern Virginia from the 
time it left Richmond moving north after the Seven Days' 
battles until it returned to Virginia after the invasion of 
Maryland; thus I missed the campaign against Pope and the 
first Maryland campaign, the great battles of second Ma¬ 
nassas and Sharpsburg, or Antietam. No soldier can expect 
to be present for duty in all the battles of a protracted war— 
sickness, wounds, and capture will naturally prevent. But 
the fact is, I was that exceptionally fortunate soldier who 
never experienced either disabling sickness or wounds or 
captivity until the very end of the struggle, and my absence 
from the active front is to be accounted for on other grounds. 

It will be remembered that at Malvern Hill several of the 
guns of our battery, my gun among them, were so roughly 
handled by the concentrated fire of the Federal artillery that 
we were compelled to send them to Richmond to be recast 
and remounted. This could not be done in time to enable 
the battery to move with the army when it marched against 
Pope. One section was equipped a little later and caught 
up in time to take part in the battle of Sharpsburg. But this 
was not my section, and the captain would not permit me to 
leave with the section first ready. Therefore I saw nothing 
of the campaigns against Pope in Virginia and McClellan in 
Maryland, and if I am to keep to the general line of reminis- 


RICHMOND—SUMMER OF ’62 


119 

cence I must simply omit the late summer and early autumn 
of '62, for of course nothing of general interest occurred 
while we were hanging about Richmond waiting for a new 
equipment. We had not yet, to any great extent, equipped 
our artillery, as we did later, especially in the Manassas and 
Maryland campaigns, by captures from the armies opposed 
to us. 

I have said nothing worth recording occurred during our 
stay around Richmond. The statement should be modified 
so far as to say that one of the noticeable features of the 
general condition was the heartrending affliction of my 
friends, almost every family having lost a relative, or some 
intimate associate, during the week of bloody battle. It had 
not, however, yet come to pass, as it did later, that black be¬ 
came the recognized dress for woman in Richmond, and that 
she actually appeared flippant and worldly and unfeeling if 
she wore any color. In the second Punic war, when Han¬ 
nibal was investing Rome, the tribune Oppius had a law 
enacted forbidding women to wear colors during the public 
distress. But in our great conflict no such enactment was 
necessary, for the devoted women of our seven-hilled city; 
dark death had entered every home and his sombre garb was 
everywhere. 

Of course, too, the hospitals were crowded just at this 
time, and in the homes of citizens many wounded soldiers 
were cared for; so that it seemed the one fitting province of 
women, young and old, to serve as nurses and attendants 
upon the wounded and the dying. I think, too, though I am 
not sure, that the churches had already begun to give their 
bells to be moulded into cannon. Certainly, long before 
the end of the war, the people of Richmond went to church 
through silent streets, and ceased to hear that heavenliest of 
all earthly sounds, which runs like a holy refrain through 
the sweetest poetry and the tenderest memories of English- 
speaking peoples. 

To me these weeks around Richmond meant more than I 
can express in welding the links that bound me to these dear 
people. I had dedicated my life to them—I was theirs and 
they were mine. I felt it; they felt it. Yes, these people 


120 


FOUR YEARS UNDER MARSE ROBERT 


were my friends, this city was my home. Our mother and 
sisters had not yet been able to get South, but the faithful 
people of my father’s former pastoral charge assured me 
that they stood ready to receive and care for them with open 
hearts in open homes, and, until they arrived, noble women 
stood ready, in case my brother or I should need such minis¬ 
trations, to do, as far as possible, a mother’s and a sister’s 
part by us. 

While I have of course no personal reminiscence to relate 
either of the Manassas or the Maryland campaign of ’62, 
yet an account was given me of the very crisis and climax 
of the former, in its essential character and all its surround¬ 
ings so striking, that I feel called upon to make record of 
it. I actually did so, indeed, while a prisoner at Johnson’s 
Island in 1865, and now use the memorandum then made. 

One of the most promising of the younger officers of the 
Army of Northern Virginia in the spring of ’64 was Col. 
Edward Willis, of the Twelfth Georgia Regiment. I saw 
him but once and under the following circumstances: Our 
battery passed the winter of ’63~’64, not in the great artillery 
camp on the Central Railroad, but with the advanced line of 
infantry guarding the middle fords of the Rapidan River. 
Battalion headquarters were in a pine thicket between Rac¬ 
coon and Morton’s fords. One beautiful day in the early 
spring I was seated in our headquarters’ tent at work on 
one of the battalion reports, which it was my duty, as adju¬ 
tant, to make to Artillery Headquarters, when a very strik¬ 
ing-looking head intruded itself in the tent door and, in a 
very nonchalant, familiar tone, the owner of the head asked, 
“Is Gibbes about?” 

We were not very punctilious about such matters in the 
Confederate service, perhaps not enough so; but the intruder 
and interlocutor was obviously, I thought, a private soldier 
and a specially untidy looking one at that—his hat unques¬ 
tionably'^ slouch,” his hair long and unkempt, his long over¬ 
coat, of whatever original ground color, now by long usage 
the color of the ground, and ending in a fringe of tatters 
around the skirt; under it no sign of a coat or of anything 
save a gray flannel shirt, no badge or insignia of rank any- 


SECOND MANASSAS 


121 


where visible, nor even an appropriate place for any, and his 
badly-worn pants turned up around his very small feet shod 
in very rough shoes. I say it did stir me a little unpleasantly 
that just this man should ask, in just these words and just 
this tone, for Major Wade Hampton Gibbes, of South Caro¬ 
lina, a young West Pointer, who had recently been assigned 
to duty with us. I might have answered differently had not 
a second glance revealed a face of such commanding intel¬ 
lect and personal force that I said, “If you will wait a mo¬ 
ment, I’ll see,” and a moment later the very effusive meeting 
between Gibbes and himself, and Gibbes’ introduction, to 
Colonel Cabell and myself, of “Col. Edward Willis, of the 
Twelfth Georgia,” made me very glad I had answered 
as I had. They had been at West Point together, I think, 
when the war broke out. Gibbes seated himself, tailor 
fashion, at one end of a large box of clothing for one of the 
batteries, which had not yet been opened, and Willis stretch¬ 
ed out on the box and put his head in Gibbes’ lap, who began 
running his fingers through the long, tangled, tawny hair, 
which hung almost to Willis’ shoulders. It would have 
been greatly to the advantage of the hair if Gibbes had used 
a comb instead of his fingers. 

They began talking of their West Point classmates and 
comrades. I was going on with my work and not listening 
closely, yet I could not help being struck with the vigor and 
the trenchant quality of Willis’ characterization of the men. 
But in a few moments he began telling of Jackson, and then 
I dropped my pen and hung eagerly on his words. I knew 
he had been on Jackson’s staff and hoped he would tell, as 
he did, how he came to leave it. 

He said that after Second Manassas, perhaps after Sharps- 
burg, Jackson sent for him and said: “Captain Willis, you 
have earned your promotion, sir. You may take your choice 
between continued service on my staff, with the rank of 
major, and a majority in an infantry regiment.” 

To which Willis, without hesitation, replied: “I’ll take 
the infantry regiment, General.” 

A reply which revealed the mettle of the man, as Jackson 
indicated by saying: “Sorry to lose you, sir; but you’ve 


122 


FOUR YEARS UNDER MARSE ROBERT 


made a soldier’s choice; you’ll be assigned to duty with the 
Twelfth Georgia.” 

Ere long he became colonel of the regiment, and at the 
time of which I write it was well understood throughout the 
army that no one commanded a better regiment and no regi¬ 
ment had a better commanding officer than the Twelfth 
Georgia. 

Soon Willis began to talk of the campaign against Pope, 
which he regarded as Jackson’s masterpiece, and as he had 
been closely with Jackson through it all, I considered what 
he said of value, as it certainly was of surpassing interest. 
He first expatiated at some length upon the masterly—I had 
almost said dastardly—way in which Jackson managed to 
find out all Pope’s plans and purposes, and yet to elude and 
delude and deceive and defraud him in the most heartless 
and malignant fashion as to his own movements and designs. 
Part of the time, while waiting for Lee and Longstreet, 
Jackson was in extreme peril, dodging between and against 
the huge Federal Army corps, rushing blindly like ava¬ 
lanches to crush him. On one or two occasions, I think 
Willis said, he even went so far as to sacrifice his skirmish 
line, that is, arrange to have them captured by Pope’s troops 
in a particular position, from which even the skirmishers 
themselves, as well as their captors, would naturally infer 
that “Old Jack” was marching in a certain direction and 
about a certain time would be about a certain place, when 
quite the reverse was the actual truth. In short, it must be 
admitted that all of Jackson’s dealings with Pope, about 
this time, were disingenuous in the extreme. Someone, not 
Willis, has said substantially that they embodied a con¬ 
tinuous, tortuous, twisted, aggravated, protracted lie —over 
fifty miles long. 

But at last, as Willis said, all these tactics of deception 
were exhausted! Jackson was straight in front, in the fa¬ 
mous position in the railroad cut, and Pope’s whole army 
moved upon him. They advanced in imposing array, with 
several lines of battle—bands playing, flags flying, and their 
artillery, following the second line, slowly firing as they ap¬ 
proached. Just as his dispositions—the best he could make 


SECOND MANASSAS 


123 


for resisting such an onslaught—were complete, Jackson 
heard from Longstreet, who promised him aid in two hours. 
The shock could be delayed, however, only a few moments, 
and Jackson, feeling the imminence of the crisis, started 
down his lines to communicate to his troops, worn with fa¬ 
tigue and suspense, his own heaven-born faith and fire and 
Longstreet’s assurance of help. I understood from Willis 
that he rode along the line with him, and that all he said 
was: 

“Two hours, men, only two hours; in two hours you will 
have help. You must stand it two hours.” 

It was the crisis of the campaign, and both sides fully ap¬ 
preciated it. The enemy came right on until within two 
hundred yards, and then broke into the rush of the charge. 
The officer commanding the leading centre brigade, and who 
was riding a powerful coal-black charger, carried the colors 
in his hand and rested the staff on the toe of his boot. Strik¬ 
ing his spurs deep into the flanks of his horse, at the same 
time reining him in, Willis said he came on, with great 
plunges, the standard flapping about him and the standard 
bearer, cap in hand, yelling at his side. The whole line thus 
gallantly led, rushed upon Jackson's men with the enthusiasm 
of assured victory. 

A hundred yards nearer and the full fire from Jackson’s 
line burst upon them, but from the inclination of the musket 
barrels it looked as if the gallant fellow on the black horse 
would be the only man to fall. On the contrary, while many 
fell and the line wavered, he was miraculously unhurt, and 
his men rallied and pressed on after him. For a moment it 
looked as if he would actually leap into the cut upon his 
foes, but the next moment the great horse reared wildly and 
fell backward, but his heroic rider jammed the color staff 
into the earth as he went down, only ten yards from the muz¬ 
zles of Jackson’s muskets. The spell that held them together 
was broken, the advancing lines halted and wavered through¬ 
out their length—a moment more and the whole magnificent 
array had melted into a mass of fugitives. 

Again Jackson rode down his lines: “Half an hour men, 
only half an hour; can you stand it half an hour ?” 


124 


FOUR YEARS UNDER MARSE ROBERT 


And now, as Willis said, it seemed as if some of his men 
exhaled their very souls to him in shouts, while others, too 
much exhausted to cheer, took off their hats and gazed at 
him in adoration as he passed. The enemy, reformed, began 
again to advance, and Jackson quickened his horse’s gait. 
“They are coming once more, men; you must stand it once 
more; you must stand it half an hour.” 

Could they have stood it? We shall never know—for be¬ 
fore the mighty wave broke again into the crest and foam of 
the actual charge, the Texas brigade was in on Jackson’s 
right and Old Pete and Old Jack together swept them in the 
counter-charge like chaff before the whirlwind. 

I have not pretended to give Colonel Willis’ exact words, 
and yet in my memorandum account of his visit to our camp 
above referred to I incorporated his words as nearly as I 
could recall them, and I have now conformed very closely to 
that memorandum. I never listened to more vivid delinea¬ 
tion of strategy or of battle. He was thoroughly stirred 
while uttering it, and its impression upon us may be gath¬ 
ered from Colonel Cabell’s words as he and Gibbes and I 
stood watching Willis as his figure disappeared in the thick 
pines: “Stiles, there goes the only man I ever saw who, I 
think, by possibility might make another Jackson!” 

In less than a month from that time he was made a briga¬ 
dier-general, for brilliant service on the field, and the very 
next day yielded up his glorious young life in battle. 

Willis’ name is not to be found on the roster of Confeder¬ 
ate general officers, but there is no doubt about the facts of 
his promotion and death. The circumstances are entirely 
familiar to me and are full of touching and tragic interest. 
These lists of Confederate officers are very imperfect. My 
Uncle William and my Cousin Edward, mentioned in these 
reminiscences, are both entered on the list of field officers, 
but my name is not mentioned. 

While I do not regard discussions as to the purposes and 
success or failure of campaigns, or the comparative numbers 
engaged on the two sides, as properly within the general scope 
of this book, yet I shall occasionally, when the matter is of spe¬ 
cial interest, or I hope to be able to add something of special 


SHARPSBURG 


125 


value, do violence to these declared views—so I here take 
the liberty of saying that it is by no means admitted among 
intelligent Confederate soldiers that the only or the main de¬ 
sign of the first Maryland campaign was to stir up revolt in 
Maryland or to recruit our army by enlistment there. It is 
not disputed that these may have been among the objects 
sought to be accomplished, nor that, so far as this is true, 
the campaign was a failure. The Confederate view of the 
matter, from a military standpoint, is in brief this: 

By our invasion of Maryland we cleared Virginia of ene¬ 
mies, sending them home to defend their own capital and 
their own borders. We subsisted our army for a time out¬ 
side our own worn-out territory. We gathered large quanti¬ 
ties of badly-needed supplies, to a great extent fitting out our 
troops with improved firearms, in place of the old smooth¬ 
bore muskets, and replacing much of our inferior field ar¬ 
tillery with improved guns. At Harper’s Ferry alone we 
captured eleven thousand prisoners, seventy-three pieces of 
artillery, thirteen thousand stand of excellent small arms and 
immense stores; besides all which, we delayed further im¬ 
mediate invasion of Virginia; indeed, as has been strongly 
said: 

Such had been the moral effect upon the enemy that the Confederate 
capital was never again seriously endangered until the power of the Con¬ 
federacy had been so broken in other quarters, and its available terri¬ 
tory so reduced in dimensions, that the enemy could concentrate his im¬ 
mense resources against the capital. 

One word now as to the numbers engaged at Sharpsburg. 
This battle has been much misunderstood. It was really the 
most superb fight the Army of Northern Virginia ever made. 
This will readily appear when we recall the fact that General 
McClellan in his official report says that he had actually 
present for duty on the field that day eighty-seven thousand 
one hundred and sixty-four (87,164) men of all arms. 
General Early thinks he had ninety-three thousand one hun¬ 
dred and forty-nine (93,149), while Colonel Taylor says 
and shows that General Lee had less than thirty-five thou¬ 
sand two hundred and fifty-five (35,255) ; Early says less 


126 


FOUR YEARS UNDER MARSE ROBERT 


than thirty thousand (30,000). Take it even at thirty-five 
thousand (35,000) and eighty-seven thousand (87,000), 
and remember that General Lee remained on the field all the 
day following the battle; that McClellan did not attack him, 
and states in his testimony before the Committee on the 
Conduct of the War (Reports, Vol. 2, Part 1, 1862-3, p. 
441) as the reason therefor, that: 

The next morning (the 18th) I found that our loss had been so great 
and that there was so much disorganization in some of the commands 
that I did not consider it proper to renew the attack that day, especially 
as I was sure of the arrival that day of two fresh divisions amounting 
to about 15,000 men. 

Two further remarks, and we leave this part of the story 
of the Army of Northern Virginia, of which I am not able 
to say quorum pars fui. And, first, that General McClellan’s 
part in all this campaign appears to have been greatly to his 
credit and honor. Summoned by the President and begged 
to see if he could not, by his personal influence, do something 
to heal the discords and want of union and cohesion in the 
Army of the Potomac; then asked to take charge of it again 
himself; then, with wondrous vigor gathering a composite 
army and unifying and enheartening it; and lastly, so hand¬ 
ling it, on the march and in the field, as to save the Federal 
capital and to clear Northern soil of invasion. 

But one incident must not be forgotten: McClellan was in¬ 
spired and enabled to march with such unwonted speed, to 
move with such unerring judgment and to fight with such 
tremendous vigor and pertinacity by the contents of a little 
paper which was picked up by a Federal soldier in one of our 
deserted camps, and which turned out to be a copy sent to 
one of our division commanders of General Lee’s order of 
battle and of campaign, showing in detail the position and 
duty assigned to each important command in the army, 
and of course just how our force was divided. There is no 
doubt as to the facts. McClellan recites them in his testi¬ 
mony above referred to, p. 440, and speaks of the effect of 
this order upon his movements. It was well understood 
among us. As Colonel Taylor says: 


FREDERICKSBURG 


127 


The God of battles alone knows what would have occurred but for the 
singular incident mentioned; it is useless to speculate on this point, but 
certainly the loss of this battle order constitutes one of the pivots on 
which turned the event of the war. 

Again Culpeper Court House is the appointed trysting 
place of the army, while waiting fuller development of the 
plan of General Burnside, the new commander of the Army 
of the Potomac, and we, the right section, having at last 
gotten our new equipment of guns, had a delightful march 
thither through a country full of good things and kind 
people, in the season of harvest and of fruit. Here, too, 
we met, with great rejoicing, our comrades of the left sec¬ 
tion, from whom we had been separated during the Ma¬ 
nassas and Maryland campaigns; and from this point were 
ordered, about the 19th of November, to Fredericksburg, in 
•connection with Longstreet’s corps, arriving there on the 
afternoon of the 21st, marching the last day through one 
of the steadiest, heaviest, and coldest downpours of au¬ 
tumnal rain I ever experienced. As the Federal batteries of 
heavy guns on Falmouth and Stafford Heights commanded 
almost the entire southern bank of the river and particularly 
the road by which we would naturally enter the town, and 
as it was specially desired that they should not be apprised 
of our arrival, we were halted just outside the town and 
back of the point of a hill, until after nightfall, and then 
marched to a dark and desolate bivouac, without fire and 
without food, and frozen to the very soul—the more so as 
w r e had of course steamed up while walking. I recall this 
as one of the most comfortless and trying nights of my life, 
:and yet so sound and tough were we that I do not recall that 
a single man of us wheezed, or even sneezed, from the ex¬ 
posure. 

In a few days, everything appearing to be quiet at the 
front, we were sent down into Caroline County, along and 
near the R. F. & P. Railroad, to go into camp for the win¬ 
ter. We selected an ideal position, went vigorously to work 
and built the very best shelters for our horses and cabins 
for ourselves that we ever put up anywhere; but hardly had 
tfhey been completed, tried, pronounced eminently satisfac- 


128 


FOUR YEARS UNDER MARSE ROBERT 


tory and christened “Sleepy Hollow,” when orders came 
for us to return at once to Fredericksburg, and that through 
a blizzard of most inclement weather. Of course we went 
and without delay—I cannot say absolutely without grum¬ 
bling. Indeed the right to grumble is the only civil, politi¬ 
cal, or social right left to the soldier, and he stands much in 
his own light if he does not exercise it to the full. We 
found rather an uncomfortable and forbidding location se¬ 
lected for us outside of Fredericksburg, and we were in a 
temper too bad to do much for its improvement, so that, 
as to external conditions, we had rather a hard, comfortless 
winter; though, even as to these, we perhaps did better 
than the commands who were ordered to the front later. 

The next incident of interest was the bombardment of the 
old town, but I do not care to enlarge upon this. Really I 
saw then and see now no justification for it. True the town 
was occupied by armed men,—Barksdale and his men, our 
old brigade,—but then the fire did not drive them out; in the 
nature of things, and especially of the Mississippi brigade, 
of course it would not, and it did drive out the women and 
children, many of them. I never saw a more pitiful proces¬ 
sion than they made trudging through the deep snow, after 
the warning was given and as the hour drew near. I saw 
little children tugging along with their doll babies,—some 
bigger than they were,—but holding their feet up carefully 
above the snow, and women so old and feeble that they could 
carry nothing and could barely hobble themselves. There 
were women carrying a baby in one arm and its bottle, its 
clothes, and its covering in the other. Some had a Bible 
and a tooth brush in one hand, a picked chicken and a bag of 
flour in the other. Most of them had to cross a creek swollen 
with winter rains, and deadly cold with winter ice and snow. 
We took the battery horses down and ferried them over, tak¬ 
ing one child in front and two behind and sometimes a 
woman or a girl on either side with her feet in the stirrups, 
holding on by our shoulders. Where they were going we 
could not tell, and I doubt if they could. 

I was about to say that the armed men had orders to come 
out, and would have done so at the proper time. But I am 


FREDERICKSBURG 


129 


not so sure about this, and certainly can’t blame the Federals 
for not knowing it, when we really couldn’t get the plaguey 
Mississippians to understand it themselves. They were 
ready to fight anything, from his Satanic Majesty down; 
but they were a very poor set indeed as to judging when 
not to fight, or when to stop fighting. Why, there was 
Colonel Fizer, of the Seventeenth. He was down on the 
river bank below the town. Of course he must have had 
retiring orders and ought to have seen that the Federal bat¬ 
teries absolutely dominated our shore; and yet he sent word 
to General Barksdale that if he would just let the Howitzers 
come down, with a couple of their guns, he could “drive 
these people back anyhow.” And “Old Barksdale,” who 
was every bit as bad as Fizer, and a little worse, actually 
sent the order, and our boys actually started. It would 
have been a practical impossibility to get these two poor 
little guns anywhere near the river. No two fragments of 
guns or men would have held together five minutes after 
they appeared on the plain that stretched out from the foot 
of the hills to the river and their intentions became known 
to the batteries on Stafford Heights. Fortunately, our divi¬ 
sion general, McLaws, and his staff met the guns just be¬ 
fore they emerged on the plain, and the general demanded of 
the officer in charge where we were going and by whose 
order, and, on being told, instantly countermanded the order 
and sent us back. It is fair to say for General Barksdale 
that when our captain galloped rapidly into town and ex¬ 
plained the matter to him, he himself withdrew his own 
order; but General McLaws had already acted. The inci¬ 
dent strongly accentuated the necessity for the battalion or¬ 
ganization of the artillery, and in our case it was put into 
immediate effect, I think, just after the battle. 

But Fizer was not the only officer of the Mississippi 
brigade that could not get it into his head, even a little later, 
that the troops were to abandon the town and retire before 
the enemy, who had now gotten their pontoons down, and 
the head of their column landed in the town. The brigade 
had been hospitably received by the citizens and its blood 
was up in their defense. 


9 


130 


FOUR YEARS UNDER MARSE ROBERT 


The Twenty-first Mississippi was the last regiment to 
leave the city. The last detachment was under the command 
of Lane Brandon, already mentioned as my quondam class¬ 
mate at Yale, and son of old Colonel Brandon, of the 
Twenty-first, who behaved so heroically at Malvern Hill. 
In skirmishing with the head of the Federal column—led, I 
think, by the Twentieth Massachusetts—Brandon captured 
a few prisoners and learned that the advance company was 
commanded by Abbott, who had been his chum at Harvard 
Law School when the war began. 

He lost his head completely. He refused to retire before 
Abbott. He fought him fiercely and was actually driving 
him back. In this he was violating orders and breaking our 
plan of battle. He was put under arrest and his subaltern 
brought the command out of town. 

Buck Denman,—our old friend Buck, of Leesburg and 
Fort Johnston fame,—a Mississippi bear hunter and a su¬ 
perb specimen of manhood, was color sergeant of the 
Twenty-first and a member of Brandon’s company. He 
was tall and straight, broad-shouldered and deep-chested, 
had an eye like an eagle and a voice like a bull of Bashan, 
and was full of pluck and power as a panther. He was 
rough as a bear in manner, but withal a noble, tender¬ 
hearted fellow, and a splendid soldier. 

The enemy, finding the way nowi clear, were coming up 
the street, full company front, with flags flying and bands 
playing, while the great shells from the siege guns were 
bursting over their heads and dashing their hurtling frag¬ 
ments after our retreating skirmishers. 

Buck was behind the corner of a house taking sight for 
a last shot. Just as his fingers trembled on the trigger, a 
little three-year-old, fair-haired, baby girl toddled out of an 
alley, accompanied by a Newfoundland dog, and gave chase 
to a big shell that was rolling lazily along the pavement, she 
clapping her little hands and the dog snapping and barking 
furiously at the shell. 

Buck’s hand dropped from the trigger. He dashed it 
across his eyes to dispel the mist and make sure he hadn’t 
passed over the river and wasn’t seeing his own baby girl 


FREDERICKSBURG 


131 

a vision. No, there is the baby, amid the hell of shot and 
shell, and here come the enemy. A moment and he has 
grounded his gun, dashed out into the storm, swept his great 
right arm around the baby, gained cover again, and, baby 
clasped to his breast and musket trailed in his left hand, is 
trotting after the boys up to Marye’s Heights. 

And there behind that historic stone wall, and in the lines 
hard by, all those hours and days of terror was that baby 
u kept, her fierce nurses taking turns patting her, while the 
storm of battle raged and shrieked, and at night wrestling 
with each other for the boon and benediction of her quiet 
breathing under their blankets. Never was baby so cared 
for. They scoured the country side for milk, and conjured 
up their best skill to prepare dainty viands for her little 
ladyship. 

When the struggle was over and the enemy had with¬ 
drawn to his strongholds across the river, and Barksdale 
was ordered to reoccupy the town, the Twenty-first Missis¬ 
sippi, having held the post of danger in the rear, was given 
the place of honor in the van and led the column. There 
was a long halt, the brigade and regimental staff hurrying 
to and fro. The regimental colors could not be found. 

Denman stood about the middle of the regiment, baby in 
arms. Suddenly he sprang to the front. Swinging her 
aloft above his head, her little garments fluttering like the 
folds of a banner, he shouted, “Forward, Twenty-first, here 
are your colors!” and without further order, off started the 
brigade toward the town, yelling as only Barksdale’s men 
could yell. They were passing through a street fearfully 
shattered by the enemy’s fire, and were shouting their very 
souls out—but let Buck himself describe the last scene in the 
drama: 

“I was holding the baby high, Adjutant, with both arms, 
when above all the racket I heard a woman’s scream. The 
next thing I knew I was covered with calico and she fainted 
on my breast. I caught her before she fell, and laying her 
down gently, put her baby on her bosom. She was most the 
prettiest thing I ever looked at, and her eyes were shut; and 
—and—I hope God’ll forgive me, but I kissed her just 
once.” 


132 FOUR YEARS UNDER MARSE ROBERT 

Fredericksburg was the simplest and easiest won battle 
of the war. The Federal batteries on Falmouth and Staf¬ 
ford Heights across the river absolutely dominated the town 
and our bank of the river and the flats on our side; but our 
troops were back on the hills, which we had fortified some¬ 
what, and which we could have held against the world. It 
is believed that less than twenty thousand of our men, about 
one-fourth of those present for duty, were actually engaged. 
Our loss was comparatively light, the Federal loss very 
heavy, especially in the attack upon Marye’s Heights and 
the famous stone wall, in front of which dead men were 
lying thicker than I ever saw them on any other field. I at¬ 
tempted to count them, but found it impossible. I could 
have walked considerable distances in front of this wall, 
stepping only on dead men, and it was with difficulty that I 
so guided my horse as to avoid trampling upon them. Burn¬ 
side saw, or his corps commanders showed him, his mistake, 
and he refused to renew the attack, as we were hoping that 
he would. There is, or perhaps I should say there was, a 
feeling that we should have ourselves made attack upon 
him, and that General Jackson favored it. Colonel Taylor, 
General Early, and other authorities scout any such idea. I 
do not feel that anything would be gained by reopening the 
discussion. 

Tennyson is in error when he says, in “Locksley Hall, ’ 
that “Woman is the lesser man.” She is the greater man. 
A good woman is better than a good man, a bad woman is 
worse; a brave woman is braver than any man ever was. 
During the bombardment I was sent into Fredericksburg 
with a message for General Barksdale. As I was riding 
down the street that led to his headquarters it appeared to be 
so fearfully swept by artillery fire that I started to ride 
across it, with a view of finding some safer way of getting 
to my destination, when, happening to glance beyond that 
point, I saw walking quietly and unconcernedly along the 
same street I was on, and approaching General Barksdale’s 
headquarters from the opposite direction, a lone woman. She 
apparently found the projectiles which were screaming and 
exploding in the air, and striking and crashing through the 


FREDERICKSBURG 


133 


houses, and tearing up the streets, very interesting—step¬ 
ping a little aside to inspect a great, gaping hole one had 
just gouged out in the sidewalk, then turning her head tQ 
note a fearful explosion in the air. I felt as if it really 
would not do to avoid a fire which was merely interesting, 
and not at all appalling, to a woman; so I stiffened my spinal 
column as well as I could and rode straight down the street 
toward headquarters and the self-possessed lady; and hav¬ 
ing reached the house I rode around back of it to put my 
horse where he would at least be safer than in front. As 
I returned on foot to the front the lady had gone up on the 
porch and was knocking at the door. One of the staff came 
to hearken, and on seeing a lady, held up his hands, ex¬ 
claiming in amazement: “What on earth, madam, are you 
doing here ? Do go to some safe place if you can find one.” 
She smiled and said, with some little tartness: “Young gen¬ 
tleman, you seem to be a little excited. Won’t you please 
say to General Barksdale that a lady at the door wishes to 
see him.” The young man assured her General Barksdale 
could not possibly see her just now; but she persisted. “Gen¬ 
eral Barksdale is a Southern gentleman, sir, and will not 
refuse to see a lady who has called upon him.” Seeing that 
he could not otherwise get rid of her, the General did come 
to the door, but actually wringing his hands in excitement 
and annoyance. “For God’s sake, madam, go and seek 
some place of safety. I’ll send a member of my staff to help 
you find one.” She again smiled gently,—while old Barks¬ 
dale fumed and almost swore,—and then she said quietly: 
“General Barksdale, my cow has just been killed in my stable 
by a shell. She is very fat and I don’t want the Yankees to 
get her. If you will send some one down to butcher her, 
you are welcome to the meat.” 

Years afterwards I delivered a Confederate memorial 
address at Fredericksburg, and when I told this incident no¬ 
ticed increasing interest and something very like amusement 
among the audience, who had ceased to look at me, but all 
eyes were turned in one direction, and just as I finished the 
story and my eyes followed theirs—there before me sat this 
very lady, apparently not a day older, and the entire audience 
rose and gave her three deafening cheers. 


134 


FOUR YEARS UNDER MARSE ROBERT 


One of the marked features of the battle was that when 
we lay down in our blankets on the night of the 12th we 
could see nothing, but could plainly hear Burnside’s immense 
force getting into position, and when we rose on the morn¬ 
ing of the 13th a dense fog overhung the entire flat in our 
front, shutting out all vision. Once or twice we did see 
men, our own skirmishers, moving about, as the blind man 
in the Scriptures saw when partially healed—“Men as trees 
walking.” I remember that when a Federal cavalry of¬ 
ficer lost his bearings in the fog and came too near our 
lines we heard every command and every movement, till 
suddenly two or three of the horsemen loomed up in the mist 
in dim outline, magnified to the size of haystacks. A mo¬ 
ment more and they ran into the Texas brigade at the foot 
of the hill in our front, and a volley emptied many a saddle,, 
their gallant leader’s among them. 

A little later a light breeze sprang up. There was a 
swaying movement of the thick vapor and then, all at once, 
it rolled up like the stage curtain of a theatre, and there,, 
spread out in the wide plain beneath, was the most magnifi¬ 
cent martial spectacle that can be imagined—a splendidly- 
equipped army of at least one hundred thousand men, in 
battle array. General Burnside testified that he had that num¬ 
ber on our side of the river. For a moment we forgot the 
terrible business ahead of us in the majesty and glory of the 
sight. 

We were stationed on what was afterwards known as 
“Lee’s Hill,” an elevation centrally located between the right 
and left flanks of our line, and jutting out at quite a com¬ 
manding height into and above the plain. For these reasons 
General Lee made it, for the most part, his field headquarters 
during the fight. Portions of the city and of Marye’s 
Heights were not visible, at least not thoroughly so; but 
every other part of the field was, clear away down, or nearly 
down, to Hamilton’s Crossing. From it we witnessed the 
break in our lines on the right, where the Federals came in 
over a piece of marshy ground, supposed to be impassable, 
between Lane’s) North Carolina and Archer’s Tennessee 
brigade. The entire attack, from its inception to its unex- 


FREDERICKSBURG 


135 


pected success, was as clearly defined as a movement on a 
chessboard, and I confess that tears started to and even 
from my eyes; but a moment later a great outburst of fire 
a little back of the line of battle indicated that the intruders 
had been gallantly met by our second line, or our reserves, 
and in a few moments out they rushed, the victors yelling 
at their heels. My uncle, William Henry Stiles, colonel of 
the Sixtieth Georgia, and who, in the absence of the gen¬ 
eral, was in command of Lawton’s brigade in the battle, told 
me an amusing story of this particular fight. 

When his brigade, with others, was ordered to stem this 
irruption, drive out the intruders and reestablish—or rather, 
for the first time properly extend and connect—our lines, 
his men were double-quicking to the point of peril and he 
running from one end to the other of his brigade line to see 
that all parts were kept properly “dressed up,” when he ob¬ 
served one of the conscripts who had lately been sent to his 
regiment—a large, fine-looking fellow—drop out and 
crouch behind a tree. My uncle, a tall, wiry, muscular man, 
was accustomed to carry a long, heavy sword, and having it 
at the time in his hand, as he passed he struck the fellow a 
sound whack across his shoulders with the flat of the wea¬ 
pon, simultaneously saying, “Up there, you coward!” To 
his astonishment the man dropped his musket, clasped his 
hands and keeled over backwards, devoutly ejaculating, 
“Lord, receive my spirit!” 

Uncle William said the entire denouement was so unex¬ 
pected and grotesque and his haste so imperative, that he 
scarcely knew how he managed to do it, but he did turn and 
deliver a violent kick upon the fellow’s ribs, at the same time 
shouting, “Get up, sir! the Lord wouldn’t receive the spirit 
of such an infernal coward;” whereupon, to his further 
amazement, the man sprang up in the most joyful fashion, 
fairly shouting, “Ain’t I killed? The Lord be praised!” 
and grabbing his musket he sailed in like a hero, as he ever 
afterwards was. The narrator added that he firmly be¬ 
lieved that, but for the kick, his conscript would have com¬ 
pleted the thing and died in good order. 

On our part of the line I witnessed a scene not quite so 
humorous as this, but strongly characteristic. I saw a tall 


136 


FOUR YEARS UNDER MARSE ROBERT 


Texan bring up the hill, as prisoners, some fifteen or 
twenty low, stolid Germans,—Bavarians I think they were, 
—no one of whom could speak a word of English. He 
must have been a foot taller than any of them, as he stood 
leaning on his long rifle and looking down upon them with 
a very peculiar expression. I asked him where he got them 
and he replied in the most matter-of-fact way, “Well, me 
and my comrade surrounded ’em; but he got killed, poor 
fellow !” He really looked as if he could have surrounded 
the entire lot alone. 

Not often have I come in contact with relations more 
beautiful than existed in some cases between young South¬ 
ern masters in the service and their slave attendants. These 
latter belonged for the most part to one of two classes: either 
they were mature and faithful men, to whose care the lad’s 
parents had committed him, or else they were the special 
chums and playmates of their young master’s boyhood days, 
who had perhaps already attended and waited upon him in 
college. 

My first cousin, eldest son of the uncle above mentioned, 
and who was a captain in his regiment, was seriously wound¬ 
ed late in the evening of the battle, but the casualty was not 
generally known, probably because the surgeons finding him 
on the field, after a hurried examination, pronounced his 
wound necessarily and speedily mortal, and added: “We 
are sorry to leave you, Captain, but we and the litter bear¬ 
ers have all we can attend to.” To which he replied: “Cer¬ 
tainly, gentlemen, go on and attend to the men; but you are 
mistaken about me. I haven’t the least idea of dying.” 

They left him; the litter bearers of course did not report 
his case, and probably neither his father nor any member 
of his company was aware of his having been wounded. 
But there was one faithful soul to whom he was more 
than all the rest of the regiment. If he continued “missing” 
the world was empty to him, and so, in cold and darkness 
and sadness, he searched every foot of ground the regi¬ 
ment had fought over, till at last he found him. Then he 
wandered about until he got from the bodies of dead men 
blankets enough to make a soft, warm bed, and carefully 


FREDERICKSBURG 


137 


lifted him on to it, and covered him snugly. He then man¬ 
aged to start a fire and get water for him, and finally, most 
important of all, got from the body of a dead Federal of¬ 
ficer a small flask of brandy and stimulated him carefully. 

About daylight the doctors came by again and, surprised 
to find him alive, made a more careful examination and 
found that the ball had passed entirely through his body 
from right to left, just between the upper and lower vital 
regions; but they added that he would have died of cold and 
exposure had it not been for the faithful love that refused 
to be satisfied until it had found and provided for him. 
That was the night of the 13th of December. On the 25th, 
I think it was, he walked up to the third story of a house in 
Richmond to see my mother, who had meantime gotten 
through from the North. 

The battle closed, as it began, with a marked, and this 
time a beautiful, natural phenomenon. It was very cold 
and very clear, and the aurora borealis of the night of De¬ 
cember 13th, 1862, surpassed in splendor any like exhibi¬ 
tion I ever saw. Of course we enthusiastic young fellows 
felt that the heavens were hanging out banners and stream¬ 
ers and setting off fireworks in honor of our victory. 

Our friends, the enemy, seemed in no hurry to leave our 
neighborhood, though they did not seem to long for another 
close grapple, and as we appeared equally indifferent to any 
shocking instance of the unhuman demoraliation of war, the 
closer acquaintance with them, General Burnside and his 
army, on the night of December 15th, apparently insulted, 
retired to their own side of the river and began to get ready 
for Christmas. 


CHAPTER XI 

RELIGIOUS LIFE OF LEE’S ARMY 

Revival in Barksdale’s Brigade at Fredericksburg—A Model Chaplain— 
Personal Conferences with Comrades—A Prayer Between the Lines 
—A Percussion Shell at Gettysburg. 

No account of my experience as a Confederate soldier 
would be complete if it failed to refer to the religious life 
of the army. This was an element of importance in all our 
armies, from the outset to the end, and was recognized and 
fostered as such by our leading generals, many of whom at¬ 
tended the religious services held among the men of their 
commands, some of them taking loving direction of these 
services. 

I remember on one occasion, when my father was preach¬ 
ing to Tom Cobb’s brigade, on the lines about Richmond in 
’62, that the service was interrupted by sharp firing in 
front and the command marched off into the woods. It 
proved a false alarm, however; the troops soon returned and 
the service was resumed. But the men were preoccupied, 
nervous, and widely scattered, and everything dragged, until 
the general, rising, begged my father to wait a moment, 
and called out: “Men, get up close together here in front, 
till your shoulders meet. You can’t make a fire if the sticks 
don’t touch.” They “closed up” and the meeting proceeded 
with great power. 

Volumes have been written on this general theme by 
chaplains and others, and I have already made brief inci¬ 
dental reference to it; but more than this is required. Not 
that I propose to condense into this chapter every fact or in¬ 
cident within my knowledge illustrative of this phase of life 
in the Confederate armies. On the contrary, I shall, in the 
main, throughout this book, allow the religious element to 


RELIGIOUS LIFE OF LEE’S ARMY 


139 


mingle with others that gave character to our soldier life, 
and to crop out here and there, as it actually did in our 
every-day experiences; for, with a Confederate soldier es¬ 
pecially, religion was not a mere Sunday matter, to be put 
on and off with his Sunday clothes, even if he had any such. 

But as the revival at Fredericksburg in the winter of 
’62-’63 concerned especially the infantry brigade with which 
I was longest and most closely associated, I may be par¬ 
doned for giving a brief sketch of what was probably the 
most marked religious movement in our war and, as I be¬ 
lieve, rarely paralleled anywhere or at any time. 

The religious interest among Barksdale’s men began about 
the time of, or soon after, the battle of Fredericksburg, 
which was about the middle of December, ’62, and continued 
with unabated fervor up to and through the battle of Chan- 
cellorsville and even to Gettysburg. In addition to the 
labors of the regimental chaplains, the ablest and most dis¬ 
tinguished ministers in Virginia, of all denominations, de¬ 
lighted to come up and speak to the men. My father, who 
was nearly seventy years old, came over from Jackson’s 
corps late in February and remained for many weeks. The 
fraternal spirit of the Christian workers is thus portrayed 
in a letter by Rev. William J. Hoge, D. D., of the Presbyte¬ 
rian Church, written from Fredericksburg in the spring of 
1863. Says Dr. Hoge: 


A rich blessing had been poured upon the zealous labors of the Rev. 
Mr. Owen, Methodist chaplain in Barksdale’s Brigade. The Rev. Dr. 
Burrows, of the Baptist church, Richmond, had just arrived, expecting 
to labor with him for some days. As I was to stay but one night, Dr. 
Burrows courteously insisted on my preaching. So we had a Presby¬ 
terian sermon, introduced by Baptist services, under the direction of a 
Methodist chaplain, in an Episcopal church! Was not that a beautiful 
solution of the vexed problem of Christian union? 

The Baptist church had been so injured during the bom¬ 
bardment that it could not be used. The meetings were 
first held in the Presbyterian church and then in the Method¬ 
ist, and finally were transferred to the Episcopal church, St. 


I4O FOUR YEARS UNDER MARSE ROBERT 

George's, which was the largest in the city, and accommo¬ 
dated, I should say, packed as it invariably was, from a 
thousand to twelve hundred men. I have never seen such 
eagerness to hear the Word of God, nor greater simplicity, 
directness and earnestness in religious services. Long be¬ 
fore the hour appointed the men would begin to gather, in¬ 
tent on getting into the church and securing a seat. There¬ 
after every moment was occupied with some act of worship 
of uncommon intensity and power. The singing, in which 
everyone joined, was hearty and impressive; the prayers, 
offered generally by the men themselves, were soul-moving 
“cries unto Godthe preacher was sometimes a distinguish¬ 
ed divine from Richmond, sometimes one of the army chap¬ 
lains, sometimes a private soldier from the ranks, but who¬ 
ever he might be, he preached the gospel and the gospel only. 
The following is an extract from a letter written by my 
father just after he reached Fredericksburg: 

After my arrival we held three meetings a day—a morning and after¬ 
noon prayer-meeting and a preaching service at night. We could scarcely 
ask of delightful religious interest more than we received. Our sanc¬ 
tuary has been crowded, lower floor and gallery. Loud, animated sing¬ 
ing always hailed our approach to the house of God; and a closely 
packed audience of men, amongst whom you might have searched in 
vain for one white hair, were leaning upon the voice of the preacher as 
if God himself had called them together to hear of life and death eter¬ 
nal. At every call for the anxious, the entire altar, the front six seats 
of the five blocks of pews surrounding the pulpit, and all the spaces 
thereabouts ever so closely packed, could scarcely accommodate the 
supplicants. 

To this graphic picture may I add a few touches. There 
was a soldier in a red blanket overcoat who had a voice like 
the sound of many waters, and who almost invariably sat 
or stood on the pulpit steps and led the singing. I remem¬ 
ber, too, the many marks of cannon balls upon and in and 
through the building, and that it added to the thrill of the 
services to realize that we were gathered under the frowning 
batteries upon Stafford Heights. And while I greatly en¬ 
joyed the many powerful sermons we heard from distin- 


RELIGIOUS LIFE OF LEE’S ARMY I4I 

guished ministers, yet I was still more impressed by the 
simple song and prayer and experience meetings of the men, 
which were generally held for at least an hour before the 
regular service began. 

Many of the “talks” delivered by the private soldiers in 
these preparatory services were thrilling beyond expression. 
Let me attempt to reproduce two or three of these, promis¬ 
ing that if I cannot be sure of the precise words employed 
by the speakers, I at least will not fail to reproduce the sub¬ 
stance and the spirit of their addresses: 

I remember that one of these private soldiers, in illustrat¬ 
ing and enforcing the folly of living in this world as if we 
were to live in it forever, asked his comrades what they 
would think of the good sense or even the sanity of one of 
their number who should to-morrow morning send to Rich¬ 
mond for an elegant wrapper, velvet smoking cap and slip¬ 
pers, and when they came, throwing away his blanket and 
stout shoes and clothes, should insist upon arraying himself 
in “these butterfly things” in the face of the fact that the 
next moment the long roll might turn him out into the deep 
snow or the guns of the enemy batter down his cantonment 
over his head. 

Another, speaking of the trivial things to which a man 
gives his heart and for which he may lose his soul, specu¬ 
lated with the finest fancy as to what it was, and how very 
a trifle it may have been, that turned the heart and the gaze 
of Lot’s wife back toward Sodom and turned her breathing 
body into a dead pillar of salt. 

And still .another—a great, broad-shouldered, double- 
jointed son of Anak, with a head like the Farnese Jove and a 
face and frame indicative of tremendous power, alike of 
character and of muscle—delivered himself of his “expe¬ 
rience” in one of the most graphic and moving talks I ever 
listened to. He said in substance: 

“Brethren, I want you to know what a merciful, forgiv¬ 
ing being the Lord is, and to do that I’ve got to tell you 
what a mean-spirited liar I am. You remember that tight 

place the brigade got into, down yonder at-, and you 

know the life I lived up to that day. Well, as soon as ever 



142 FOUR YEARS UNDER MARSE ROBERT 

the Minies began a-singing and the shell a-bursting around 
me, I up and told the Lord that I was sorry and ashamed 
of myself, and if He’d cover my head this time we’d settle 
the thing as soon as I got out. Then I got to fighting and 
forgot all about it, and never thought of my promise no 
more at all till we got into that other place, up yonder at 

-; you remember it, tighter than the first one. Then, 

when the bullets begun a hissing like rain and the shell was 
fairly tearing the woods to pieces, my broken promise come 
back to me. Brethren, my coward heart stopped beating 
and I pretty nigh fainted. I tried to pray and at first I 
couldn’t; but I just said, 'Look here, Lord, if you will look, 
I feel I have lied to you and that you won’t believe me again, 
and may be you oughtn’t to; but I don’t want to go to hell, 
and I’m serious and honest this time, and if you do hear 
me now, we’ll meet just as soon as I get out safe, and we 
certainly will settle things.’ 

"Well, brethren, He did all I asked of Him, the Lord did; 
and what did I do ? Brethren, I’m ashamed to say it, but I 
lied again, and never thought one thing about it at all till 
one day we was shoved into the very worst place any of us 
ever was in. Hell gaped for me, and here come the two 
lies I had told and sat right down upon my heart and my 
tongue. Of course I couldn’t pray, but at last I managed to 
say, 'Lord! Lord! I deserve it all if I do go there, right 
now, and I can’t pray and I won’t lie any more. You can 

do as you please, Lord; but if you do-. But, no, I 

won’t lie any more, and I won’t promise, for fear I should 
lie. It’s all in your hands, Lord—hell or mercy. I’ve got no 
time to talk any more about it. I’ve got to go to killing 
Yankees. But, oh Lord! oh Lord!—no, I daresn’t, I 
daresn’t; for I won’t lie any more; I won’t go down there 
with a fresh lie on my lips; but, oh Lord! oh Lord!’ 

"And so it was, brethren, all through that dreadful day; 
fighting, fighting, and not daring to pray. 

"But, brethren, He did it, He did it; and the moment the 
thing was over I wouldn’t give myself time to lie again, so I 
just took out and ran as hard as ever I could into the deep, 
dark woods, where God and me was alone together, and I 




RELIGIOUS LIFE OF LEE’S ARMY 


I 43 


threw my musket down on the ground and I went right 
down myself, too, on my knees, and cried out, Thank you, 
Lord; thank you, Lord! but I’m not going to get up off my 
knees until everything’s settled between us;’ and neither 
I didn’t, brethren. The Lord never held it over me at all, 
and we settled it right there.” 

It is said that more than five hundred men professed con¬ 
version in these Fredericksburg meetings, and this statement 
is based upon careful figures made by the regimental chap¬ 
lains, and particularly by Rev. William Owen, who really 
began these meetings, and was practically in charge of them. 
Some of the chaplains were very uncommon men. My 
father, who was in the ministry more than fifty years and 
had a very wide experience with men, expressed the highest 
estimate of them. 

Easily the most marked man among them, however, was 
the Rev. William Benton Owen, chaplain of the Seventeenth 
Mississippi Regiment. My recollection is that he had been 
a private soldier and was commissioned chaplain, because 
■he was already doing the work of one—yes, of half a dozen 
—without the commission. Of all the men I ever knew, I 
think he was the most consecrated, the most unselfish, and 
the most energetic, and that he accomplished more that was 
really worthy of grateful recognition and commendation 
than any other man I ever knew, of his ability. By this I 
do not mean to imply that his ability was small, but simply 
that I do not include in this statement a few men I have 
:known, of extraordinary abilities and opportunities. 

“Brother William,” as we used to call him, was also a 
.man of the sweetest, loveliest spirit, but of the most unflinch¬ 
ing courage as well. After he became chaplain he never felt 
it right or fitting that he should attempt to kill or wound a 
man, so he never fired another shot, yet he was seldom back 
tof the actual line of battle. It may give some faint idea of 
his exalted Christian heroism to say that his regular habit 
was to take charge of the litter-bearers in battle, and first to 
see to the removal of the wounded, Federal as well as Con¬ 
federate, when the former fell into our hands; and then to 
^attend to the burial of the dead of both sides, when we held 



144 FOUR YEARS UNDER MARSE ROBERT 

the field and the enemy did not ask leave to bury their own 
dead. 

It will be remembered by Federal soldiers that the Ameri¬ 
can Tract or Bible Society published Testaments with the 
United States flag on the fly leaf, and, on the folds of the 
banner, the printed words, “If I should fall, send this to 

-,” space being left for his home address, which each 

soldier was supposed to write in the appropriate place. Dear 
Brother William could not always burden himself with all 
these Testaments taken from the dead soldiers' pockets; but 
because that was not possible, he used to carry a little blank 
book in which he would copy the home addresses of the 
dead soldiers and would afterwards write to their friends, 
telling them where they were buried, and, if possible, how 
their bodies might be identified. 

After one of the bloody repulses of the enemy at Spoftsyl- 
vania in 1864, Brother William was, as usual, out in front of 
our works, utterly unconscious of his own heroism or his 
own peril. He had removed the wounded of both sides and 
taken note of our dead, and was making his memoranda of 
the home addresses of the Federal dead, when a Minie 
ball struck his left elbow, shattering it dreadfully. He was 
at once carried to the field hospital, and some of Barks¬ 
dale’s (now Humphreys’) men sent word down the line to 
me. As soon as our guns were disengaged I galloped to 
the hospital to see him; but when I arrived he was under 
the knife, his elbow being in process of resection, and, of 
course, was unconscious. My recollection is that I saw him 
but for a moment only. Much as I would have given for 
even so little as one word from him, I could not possibly 
wait, but was obliged to return to my post. 

I never saw him again. As usual, after one of these death 
grapples of ’64, Grant slipped off to his left and we to our 
right, this time too far for me to get back. In a few days 
we heard that Mr. Owen was in Richmond and then that h^ 
had been sent home, and our hopes grew bright that he 
would ultimately recover. But no; he was never really a 
strong man; indeed he was one of the few small and slight 
men I remember in the entire brigade, and, besides, he was 



RELIGIOUS LIFE OF LEE'S ARMY I 45 

worn and wasted with his ceaseless labors. He never really 
rallied, but in a short time sank and passed away. Few 
servants of God and man as noble and consecrated, as useful 
and beloved, as William Owen have lived in this world or 
left it for Heaven. 

I have referred incidentally to two special friends of mine 
in the company,—whom we will now identify as Allan and 
Billy,—and in a later chapter will refer again to the sin¬ 
cerity and candor of the intercourse, especially the religious 
intercourse, of soldiers with each other. If now I can, by 
a touch here and there, reveal something of what passed 
between me and each of these noble boys as they were led 
into the higher life, I will have done more than I could do 
in any other way to put before you the every-day religious 
life of the army. 

Both my friends were younger than I, both were high, 
moral men, but neither was a Christian; Allan and I were 
law students when the war interrupted our studies—he at 
the University of Virginia, I at Columbia College, New 
York. It was he who, having been previously a pronounced 
Union man, left the University before breakfast the morn¬ 
ing President Lincoln's call for troops was published and 
joined a military company in Richmond before going to his 
father's house. Billy was the guide who met us at the train 
the day we joined the battery, and conducted us to the 
Howitzer camp. We‘were all in the same detachment, that 
is, attached to the same gun, so I readily could and actually 
did pass much of my waking life first with one and then 
with the other, and I generally laid down by one or the other 
at night. Our religious conferences were seldom all three 
together, for the other two differed in nature and did not 
have the same temptations or difficulties to overcome. I 
began earnest effort with both of them as far back as Lees¬ 
burg, and when I was promoted and left the battery, just 
after Chancellorsville, both had become Christians. 

It may seem almost grotesque in such a connection to 
remark that one of the most difficult things for a soldier 
to do is to keep his person and his scant clothing reasonably 
clean, and that one of the large memories of my soldier life 


10 


146 FOUR YEARS UNDER MARSE ROBERT 

is a record of “divers washings.” Yet I cannot recall ever 
having bathed or washed, while with the company, with 
any one other than my two dear friends, and it is singular 
how vividly I do recall standing waist deep in a pool or 
stream of water with Billy or with Allan, each of us scrub¬ 
bing away at his only shirt, or at one of his two shirts, as 
the case might be, meanwhile earnestly discussing some as¬ 
pect of the one great matter. 

Both my dear friends were exceptionally strong men in¬ 
tellectually, but Billy had the simpler nature, with less ten¬ 
dency to self-analysis and introspection, stronger physical 
life and higher animal spirits; so that with him it was a clear 
and a clearly-confessed case of light-hearted content and 
happiness as he was, and consequent light-hearted indiffer¬ 
ence to any great change. But he was growing more 
thoughtful, more tender, more perfect in his moral life. 

He was wounded seriously at Malvern Hill and threatened 
with the loss of an eye, and was at home in the country with 
his mother and sisters for some months Meanwhile his 
father died, and he began to realize that if he lived through 
the war he would have a great burden to carry with his 
“seven women,” as he afterwards called them when nobly 
bearing them on his great shoulders. “Seven women tak¬ 
ing hold of the skirt of one man, and that the skirt of a 
round-about jacket,” as Billy used to say. He returned to us 
just before Chancellorsville to find the great revival at 
Fredericksburg in progress and a general condition of 
thoughtfulness throughout the army, including our bat¬ 
tery. He attended some of these wonderful services and 
we were together as much as possible. I felt the greatest 
yearning and the strongest hope for him. 

Suddenly Chancellorsville burst upon us, and as Hooker’s 
really great plan was disclosed we all felt that the next few 
days were indeed big with fate. Hooker had crossed an 
immense force at the upper fords of the Rappahannock and 
Sedgwick was crossing in front of Fredericksburg. All 
of us were deeply stirred; and when night fell and our lines 
began to grow still, I proposed to Billy that we should 
walk out to the point of the hill overlooking the wide river 


RELIGIOUS LIFE OF LEE’s ARMY I47 

bottom and hear, if we could not see, the Federal army get¬ 
ting into position. We did so, and no previous hour of our 
lives had ever proved as impressive as that which followed. 
We passed beyond our pickets and continued to walk until 
"we got where the murmur of our lines could no longer be 
heard, while every movement of Sedgwick’s great host was 
plainly audible. We heard the commands of the officers, 
the tramp of the men, the rumble of the artillery carriages, 
the shouts and curses of the drivers. We thought of the 
great meetings in Fredericksburg violently brought to a 
close, and of the great audience of worshipers to-night 
.manning the lines with us. We thought of the morrow and 
then of our dear ones praying for us, while I found my 
arms gradually embracing my friend and drawing him 
•closer to my bosom; and then, taking off our hats, we 
prayed,—oh, so quietly, yet so earnestly!—committing us 
and ours to God’s merciful keeping, for the night, for the 
jmorrow, forever. I do not remember that we spoke after 
the prayer ceased, but I felt a new answering pressure in 
Billy’s arms which now closely enfolded me, and the sense 
•of a new brotherhood between us. We walked silently back 
to the guns, but with a new strength, a deep trust and peace 
in our souls, and we laid down with our arms about each 
•other and slept as quietly as little children—as indeed we 
were, God’s dear soldier children, who had felt His gentle 
assurance that all was and would be well. 

The facts relating to Allan’s conversion and death are 
so remarkable that I would scarcely dare record them were it 
mot that I have before me a written memorandum of them 
prepared while I was a prisoner at Johnson’s Lsland in the 
spring of 1865. Allan was, as before intimated, rather 
prone to introspection, but his mental processes were so defi¬ 
nite and his verbal expression of them so clear that one ex¬ 
perienced no difficulty in understanding him and always felt 
assured that he thoroughly understood himself. 

A few days before Billy’s return, Allan and I were wash¬ 
ing our clothes, and I, as usual, talking, when he abruptly 
and almost impatiently interrupted me, saying substantially 
that, while I evidently thought I was speaking sensibly and 


I48 FOUR YEARS UNDER MARSE ROBERT 

appositely, yet what I was saying had in fact no sort of 
application to his case. 

“No doubt,” said he, “it is enough if a man believe on the 
Lord Jesus Christ; but this direction is given to one who 
has, in all sincerity and earnestness, asked, 'What must I 
do to be saved V Now I feel that I have never sincerely and 
seriously asked that question, and I am not asking it now. 
The fact is, the whole current of my being sets toward the 
fulfilment of my earthly purpose; though just now the im¬ 
mediate pursuit of it is kept in abeyance by the war. It is not 
worth while to attempt to deceive myself or you; what I 
really desire and am absorbed in, my dear Bob, is not eter¬ 
nal life, but the life which now is. Now then, what should, 
what can a man do, who is in my condition? Tell me what 
you really think; and speak quietly and practically, so there 
will be no mistaking your meaning.” 

I knew he was honest and hoped he was more earnest than 
he realized at the moment, so I begged for light and guid¬ 
ance before answering, and then I said: 

“Allan, do you intellectually and firmly believe the New 
Testament records and the main outline of the Christian 
system; and if you do, have you any feeling at all connected 
with them and their bearing upon your life?” 

“Yes,” he said, “my intellectual belief is definite and de¬ 
cided, and I probably, yes, certainly, have some desire to ac¬ 
cept the truth in the fuller, Christian sense.” 

“Then,” said I, “your present duty is clear and it is to 
pray to God to help you to accept in this fuller sense. Tell 
Him of your full intellectual faith and your feeble heart 
faith. Utter sincerely that prayer of prayers for a man in 
such a world and such a life as this, 'Lord, I believe, help 
Thou mine unbelief !’ Do this sincerely, and I feel satisfied 
the heart or soul part of your faith will grow.” 

He protested that the best prayer he could offer would be 
but half-hearted and an insult to God. I combatted this 
idea, contending that it would be a greater neglect and insult 
not to attempt to pray at all, and he finally promised he 
would try. When I next saw him alone I think we were on 
the march for Chancellorsville. He was evidently unhappy, 


RELIGIOUS LIFE OF LEE’S ARMY 


149 


and when I asked him if he had prayed, he said he had not, 
that he had been upon his knees, but could not pray, and 
added that his nature must be more paralyzed and things 
even worse with him than he had supposed. I saw that 
another Teacher and Physician had taken the case out of my 
hand. He rather clung to me, but I thought best to leave 
him with his new Teacher, and I did. 

Two of our comrades were killed and horribly mangled 
by solid shot or whole shell in our Chancellorsville fights, 
and we buried one of them at night in a thicket. Returning 
there after the burying party had withdrawn, I saw a man 
on his knees at the graveside. It was Allan, and at my 
approach he rose and advanced to meet me, saying: 

“Bob, I am a mystery to myself. I don’t see how I am to 
go up to the gun in to-morrow’s fight and face temporal and 
eternal death; and yet I presume I shall be able to do my 
duty.” 

I said decidedly: 

“You have no business, Allan, and no need to face eter¬ 
nal death. That is not before you, unless you will have it 

_ _ yf 

so. 

We said a few words to each other, a few more to God, 
went back and joined the sad circle around the camp fire a 
short while, and then laid down together. I think I told him 
about Billy, and then we slept. 

The next day, after evening roll call, we each put an arm 
around the other’s waist and walked off into the woods, and 
as soon as we got out of earshot of others I began: 

“Well, Allan, to go back where we left off—” 

He put his other hand in mine and I felt a thrill as he 
did so, while, with the sweetest smile, he said: 

“No, Bob, I don’t think we will go back there. I’ve gotten 
beyond that point, and I don’t like going back. I have found 
the Lord Jesus Christ, or, rather, He has found me and taken 
hold of me.” 

It was the largest, the most thrilling moment of my life. 
Never before had I been conscious of such overpowering 
spiritual joy. We were for the moment two disembodied 


150 FOUR YEARS UNDER MARSE ROBERT 

human souls alone with God. The earth with its trappings 
had disappeared. 

It was my last word with him. It must have been the next 
day that I received my first promotion and left for Rich¬ 
mond, for Beers was killed at Chancellorsville and I buried 
him at Richmond. When I returned to the army it was to 
Early’s division of the Second Corps. True, we did not be¬ 
gin the advance into Pennsylvania for almost a full month 
after Chancellorsville, and what became of this month to 
me I cannot say, except that I went where I was ordered, 
and do not recall meeting the Howitzers again until after 
Gettysburg. 

On his way to his last battle this splendid youth wrote to 
his family a brief note, in which he said: 

“In the hurry of the march I have little time for thought, 
but whenever my eternal interests do occur to me, I feel en¬ 
tire assurance of full and free pardon through Jesus Christ, 
and if called upon to die this moment I think I could do so 
cheerfully.” 

These were the last words he ever wrote. 

After Gettysburg I rode over to the old battery and they 
told me this story. On the last day, worn with that tre¬ 
mendous fight, two of our guns had taken up their last po¬ 
sition. All thought the struggle over. Allan had just seen 
a friend on the staff who promised to, and did, send word 
home of his safety at the close of the battle. Suddenly a 
terrific fire burst thundering, flashing, crashing upon them 
and No. 1, while ramming home the shot, had the sponge- 
staff shattered in his hands. No. 1 was Billy; Allan was 
gunner, and stooped to unkey the other sponge. A frightful 
explosion, the piece is dismounted and most of the detach¬ 
ment hurled violently to the earth! 

The sergeant, a quite, phlegmatic man, looked about him 
in horror. The lieutenant, running up, demanded: 

“Why don’t you change that wheel?” 

“I haven’t men enough left, sir; we’ve used up the super¬ 
numeraries.” 

“Where’s Allan?” 


RELIGIOUS LIFE OF LEE's ARMY 151 

“There he is, sir!”—pointing to a mangled mass which 
no one had the nerve to approach. 

There lay our noble comrade, each several limb thrice 
broken, the body gashed with wounds, the top of the skull 
blown off and the brain actually fallen out upon the ground 
in two bloody, palpitating lobes. A percussion shell had 
struck the rim of the wheel while he bent behind it unkeying 
the rammer. 

His chariot and horses of fire had caught him up into 
Heaven. 


CHAPTER XII 


BETWEEN FREDERICKSBURG AND CHANCELLORSVILLE 

Our Mother and Sisters Arrive From the North—A Horse’s Instinct of 
Locality and Direction—Our Artillery Battalion and Its Command¬ 
er—Commerce Across the Rappahannock—Snow-ball Battles—A 
Commission in Engineer Troops—An Appointment on Jackson’s 
Staff—Characteristic Interview Between General Jackson and My 
Father—The Army Telegraph—President Lincoln’s Letter—Hook¬ 
er’s Plan Really Great, But Lee’s Audacity and His Army Equal to 
Any Crisis—Head of Column, to the Left or to the Right. 

In the four or five months between Fredericksburg and 
Chancellorsville, that is to say, between the middle of De¬ 
cember, '62, and the first of May, ’63, several things oc¬ 
curred of special interest to me personally, as well as several 
others of more general and public significance. It is not 
possible now to relate these events in their exact sequence, 
nor even to be confident that every incident referred to as 
belonging to this period actually happened between the dates 
mentioned; but neither of these considerations is important. 

To my next younger brother, Randolph, and myself the 
one event of transcendent interest about this time was the 
long-deferred arrival in Richmond of our mother and sis¬ 
ters, whom we had left behind in New Haven in the spring 
of *6i. Neither of us had heretofore asked anything in the 
nature of a furlough, or leave of absence, feeling that our 
comrades who, by such leave, would be enabled to see father 
and mother, sisters and home, should be entitled to the pref¬ 
erence ; and now, when it became known that our dear people 
were in Richmond, everyone stood back for us and urged 
our claims. Not only did the captain approve our applica¬ 
tion, but the first lieutenant offered me his thoroughbred 
horse, “Rebel,” by the aid of whose fleet limbs it was 


FREDERICKSBURG TO CHANCELLORSVILLE 153 

thought I might be able to get around to the necessary head¬ 
quarters in a day, and also, perhaps, have a chance to say a 
word in behalf of my brother and myself, instead of wait¬ 
ing the slow process and the somewhat uncertain result of 
the papers working their own way through “the regular 
channels.” My recollection is that all this happened about 
Christmas time, so that the goodness of our comrades in 
standing back for us was the more praiseworthy. 

I did succeed in making “the grand rounds” in a day, but 
might not have done so but for the combined intelligence and 
stubbornness of little Rebel. It was almost dark when I left 
the last headquarters I had to visit, and started for camp, 
which was a long distance off, and the latter part of the 
way almost a labyrinth of undistinguishable army tracks. 
The road was yet, however, distinct, and my horse not at all 
fatigued and making good speed; but just as I was felici¬ 
tating myself that all was working well, the road turned 
sharply to the left, to avoid an apparently impassable 
swamp, but the little horse absolutely refused to turn with it, 
insisting upon going directly forward into the swamp. 

I fought him for ten or fifteen minutes to no purpose. He 
only balked and wheeled and reared and plunged, until 
finally, utterly worn out, I gave him his head and he took 
and kept his course, as the crow flies, into and through the 
swamp, over and past fence and ditch, on through brush and 
brake and briar and thicket, I making no effort to guide or 
control him; indeed, after a short time, utterly unable even 
to see where he was going and only attempting to lie as 
close as possible to his back and as far as possible to protect 
my face and eyes. I never took another such ride, before or 
since, and had no idea when or where it would end, until at 
last—yet in an incredibly short time—the little fellow push¬ 
ed his determined front through the fringe of low pines that 
protected our battery horse shelters and—we were at home. 
1 was bruised and scratched, tired and cold, wet and hungry, 
but I made the plucky little horse comfortable before doing 
anything for myself, and next morning satisfied myself that 
he had never before been over the tract of country we had 
traversed together, and that it was a clear case of unerring 


154 FOUR YEARS UNDER MARSE ROBERT 

instinct for locality and direction. I had all the required en¬ 
dorsements, and that very day “Randy” and I took the train 
for Richmond, the two happiest boys among all Marse 
Robert’s ragged thousands. 

When it is recalled that it had been nearly two years since 
we left our mother and sisters in the North; that during all 
this time we had only irregular, illegal, and very infrequent 
communication with them, and consequently had now all 
the vivid experiences of two such years to interchange, the 
intense interest and bliss of these furlough days in Richmond 
may be faintly imagined. My memory is not absolutely 
clear, but I am almost positive that Mrs. Beers and her little 
girls had come on with our mother and sisters and that Beers 
had also gotten a furlough to meet them and was in Rich¬ 
mond with us. If so, it was the last time I ever saw the 
noble fellow alive. It will be remembered he fell at Chan- 
cellorsville. 

One matter of very great importance which took shape 
between Fredericksburg and Chancellorsville was the or¬ 
ganization of our (Cabell’s) battalion of artillery. It was 
made up of four batteries—ours, the First Company, Rich¬ 
mond Howitzers, of Virginia; Manly’s Battery, of North 
Carolina; the Troupe Artillery and Frazier’s Battery, of 
Georgia; and it included, at different times, from sixteen to 
eighteen guns, mostly brass Napoleons. Its commanding 
officer was Col. H. C. Cabell, a member of the historic and 
illustrious Virginia family of that name and a man every 
way worthy of his lineage. 

For eighteen months of the hottest part of the war I was 
the adjutant of Colonel Cabell, fighting by his side by day 
and sleeping by his side by night, eating and drinking often 
out of the same tin cup, lying upon the same oil cloth and 
covered with the same blanket—side by side, heart to heart, 
soul to soul. If ever I knew a man through and through, I 
knew him; and a cleaner, sweeter, more loyal soul I never 
knew. His essential characteristics were pure and unselfish 
nature, tender and affectionate heart, gentle and unfailing 
courtesy, single-hearted and devoted patriotism, quiet but 
indomitable courage. I never knew him to fail to be at the 


FREDERICKSBURG TO CHANCELLORSVILLE 155 

point of peril along the front of his battalion, nor there nor 
anywhere to fail to measure up to the full standard of a bat¬ 
talion commander’s duty and responsibility. I never knew 
him to shrink from any hardship or any duty or any sacri¬ 
fice for the cause to which we had devoted our lives. I 
never knew him to fail to treat a private soldier with a con¬ 
sideration which was grateful to him, and yet never knew 
this courtesy to interfere with the maintenance of disci¬ 
pline. I never knew him to wound intentionally the feelings 
of a human being, or fail to repair the wrong if committed 
inadvertently. He was a man of intellect and culture, as 
well as character; as a friend ever faithful, as a companion 
always agreeable, as an officer enjoying the unqualified con¬ 
fidence and approval of his superiors, and the universal re¬ 
spect and affection of his subordinates. 

I am well aware that all this should have resulted in even 
more, but he who never did injustice to others never did 
full justice to himself. He lacked self-assertion and aggres¬ 
sion ; to some extent, too, he lacked the manner and bearing 
of a soldier, and he never maneuvered for position for him¬ 
self or his battalion. 

He was not, however, lacking in proper soldierly ambi¬ 
tion. He already enjoyed distinguished position; for the 
officer who attains and reputably maintains the rank of full 
colonel of artillery fills a position of great honor and re¬ 
sponsibility. But he was much pleased to learn late in the 
war that certain of his friends, as they announced them¬ 
selves, were planning to secure for him the exceptional rank 
of brigadier-general of artillery. He was interested and 
gratified until he accidentally discovered that it was involved 
in the plan that he should be retired to the permanent de¬ 
fenses of Richmond, and another officer should take his bat¬ 
talion in the field. When this feature was developed, for 
once he flamed into ungovernable rage. It was the only time 
I ever heard him swear. “Stiles,” said he, “what do these 
people take me for? Have I given men any reason to con¬ 
sider me a damned sneak and coward and fool ?” 

I cannot forbear a trifling incident, revealing in a flash the 
simplicity and beauty of his nature and of our relations and 


156 FOUR YEARS UNDER MARSE ROBERT 

intercourse. It occurred at the left base of the Bloody Angle 
at Spottsylvania in 1864, where one or two of his batteries 
had been ordered to take the place of some of our artillery 
which had been captured, and to stay the rout. The guns 
were in column back of the lines, awaiting our return, we 
having ridden into that gloomy pit of defeat and demoraliza¬ 
tion to determine exactly where they should be placed. As 
we came out, before riding back to bring up the guns, we 
dismounted in a place of comparative security, just to stretch 
our limbs and unbend a moment from the awful tension. 
Leaving his horse, Colonel Cabell walked up to me, color 
mounting his face and tears filling his eyes, and threw his 
arms about me, saying in a voice husky with feeling exactly 
these words: “Stiles, if you should dare to get killed, I’d 
never forgive you.” 

Such was the commanding officer of our battalion. Either 
at the organization or soon after, Major S. P. Hamilton, of 
South Carolina, was assigned to duty with the command, 
and at a later period Major W. H. Gibbes, of the same 
State, was with us for a few weeks or months. I am not 
certain as to the date of my first service with the battalion as 
adjutant. Some of my comrades insist that it was from the 
inception; but I am sure this is not true, unless, as is pos¬ 
sible, I may have been detailed by Colonel Cabell to aid 
temporarily in arranging matters and getting the new or¬ 
ganization in working order. I could not have been regu¬ 
larly even “acting adjutant,” for I held no commission 
until after Chancellorsville, a battle in which we were 
fought as a battalion, though in two divisions, while I dis¬ 
tinctly remember I fought as a private soldier, in the old 
battery, in my usual position at my own gun. 

Soon after the battle of Gettysburg, whether on the Vir¬ 
ginia or Maryland side of the river I do not now remember, 
Colonel Cabell met me and asked what I was doing, and 
learning that I was at the time a sort of free lance, with one 
of the artillery battalions of the Second Corps, urged me to 
get the informal permission of General Early, with whose 
headquarters I kept up some sort of connection, and go 
back with him to the First Corps and act as adjutant of his 


FREDERICKSBURG TO CHANCELLORSVILLE 157 

battalion, which I did; he promising to get a regular order 
assigning me to this duty. Upon reflection, I think the first 
order of detail for duty at his headquarters, by Colonel 
Cabell himself, prior to Chancellorsville, as above suggested, 
is very probable, as I do not otherwise see how the Colonel 
would have known me or had reason to suppose I would be 
satisfactory to him in the position. 

Among matters worthy of note occurring prior to Chan¬ 
cellorsville, it may not be out of place to mention the very 
active commerce or interchange of commodities, carried on 
by tiny sailing vessels, between the north and south banks 
of the Rappahannock River, at and below Fredericksburg, 
both before and after that battle. The communication was 
almost constant and the vessels many of them really beauti¬ 
ful little craft, with shapely hulls, nicely painted; elaborate 
rigging, trim sails, closed decks, and perfect working steer¬ 
ing apparatus. The cargoes, besides the newspapers of the 
two sides, usually consisted on our side of tobacco and on 
the Federal side of coffee and sugar, yet the trade was by 
no means confined to these articles, and on a sunny, pleasant 
day the waters were fairly dotted with the fairy fleet. Many 
a weary hour of picket duty was thus relieved and lightened, 
and most of the officers seemed to wink at the infraction of 
military law, if such it was. A few rigidly interdicted it, but 
it never really ceased. 

Another institutional amusement of the army in the win¬ 
ter of ’62-3, which tended greatly to relieve the almost un¬ 
endurable tedium of camp life, was the snow-ball battle. 
These contests were unique in many respects. In the first 
place here was sport, or friendly combat, on the grandest 
scale, perhaps, known in modern times. Entire brigades 
lined up against each other for the fight. And not the 
masses of men only, but the organized military bodies—the 
line and field officers, the bands and the banners, the gen¬ 
erals and their staffs, mounted as for genuine battle. There 
was the formal demand for the surrender of the camp, and 
the refusal, the charge, and the repulse; the front, the flank, 
the rear attack. And there was intense earnestness in the 
struggle—sometimes limbs were broken and eyes, at least 


158 FOUR YEARS UNDER MARSE ROBERT 

temporarily, put out, and the camp equipment of the van¬ 
quished was regarded as fair booty to the victors. 

I recall a visit paid in company with my father, not long 
after the battle of Fredericksburg, to the camp of my uncle 
mentioned in a former chapter as having been in command 
of Lawton’s brigade in that fight. He was still in command 
of it. My father asked the cause of several very heavy 
bruises on his face. I never saw my uncle more deeply em¬ 
barrassed, as he related, blushing like a girl, what he called 
his “preposterous experience” in leading his brigade the day 
before in a snow battle with Hoke’s, which lasted several 
hours—and as the really laughable picture was developed, 
its strong coloring heightened by my uncle’s embarrassed 
blushes, I never saw my father more heartily amused. It 
seemed that my uncle at one point in the conflict had been 
dragged from his horse and captured by Hoke’s men, but 
later had been recaptured by his own command, and on both 
occasions had been pretty roughly handled. One would 
have supposed these veteran troops had seen too much of 
the real thing to seek amusement in playing at battle. 

I had now been in the army for nearly two years and 
was still a private soldier, yet quite content as such. My 
mental attitude in this regard was perhaps rather unusual. 
I had originally volunteered exclusively from sense of duty, 
regarding the war, so far as it affected me personally, as an 
interruption to my personal purposes and ambitions in con¬ 
nection with the law; but I was never one of those who con¬ 
sidered the conflict to be a matter of sixty or ninety days 
or a year, and soon came to look upon it as of indefinite 
duration and likely to prove an absorbing business to me for 
a long time to come. Gradually I became interested in 
military life and began to contemplate it as perhaps my life 
work, and from this time my interest in it grew apace. Still 
I had thought little of promotion except in the aspect of 
making myself deserving of it. True, General Hill had, at 
quite an early period, said something of a commission, but 
none had come, and I had continued to look upon the po¬ 
sition, even of a corporal, as requiring a certain amount of 
military aptitude, not to say talent and training, which I 
was not confident I had. 


FREDERICKSBURG TO CHANCELLORSVILLE 159 

But this morbid and unpractical view of things was giv¬ 
ing way before the stubborn fact, established by observa¬ 
tion and experience, that I every day saw men in position 
far above me, obviously my inferiors in every qualification 
and requisite for rank and command; nor could I be blind 
1o the further fact that my commanding officers regarded 
me with rather special confidence and approval. Gradually I 
came to entertain the idea that I might some day be offered 
promotion and perhaps should not feel called upon to reject 
it, though I could never contemplate any effort on my part to 
secure it. 

While I was in this state of mind, some little time before 
the opening of the Chancellorsville campaign, I received a 
■communication from the Engineer Bureau in Richmond con¬ 
taining an appointment to a second lieutenancy in “Engi¬ 
neer Troops,” a new corps about to be organized in the 
Army of Northern Virginia. There was no explanation 
accompanying the paper, and I did not recognize as famil¬ 
iar any name connected with it, and after due reflection con¬ 
cluded that the communication had been sent me by mistake 
and was intended for my cousin, Robert Mackay Stiles, who 
was an engineer, as I understood then serving in the far 
South in some appropriate capacity. I supposed his services 
were desired in organizing the new corps, and I actually re¬ 
turned the paper, with the above suggestion, and therewith 
dismissed the matter from my mind. Meanwhile there oc¬ 
curred one of the most noteworthy experiences of my life. 

The very day, I think it was, of what might be termed 
“our spring opening” of ’63, and probably before we made 
the first move looking toward Chancellorsville, I was busy 
about some duty in the battery, when I heard the captain’s 
voice calling me sharply, and as I approached his quarters 
noticed a courier just leaving. The captain informed me that 
'General Jackson had sent an order for me to report imme¬ 
diately at his headquarters. When my first surprise sub¬ 
sided I told Captain McCarthy, what I was then confident 
was the case, that the message was doubtless from my father, 
who loved to work in the Second Corps, and spent much 
Ttime at the General’s quarters; but the captain protested that 


i6o 


FOUR YEARS UNDER MARSE ROBERT 


the order was from “Old Jack” himself, that he could not 
imagine what he wanted with me; he hoped not to have me 
shot for some violation of military law. “However,” said 
he, “you had better take one of the sergeant’s horses and go 
and find out for yourself”—which I proceeded at once to 
do; but had not gotten beyond the confines of camp before I 
heard the captain calling again, the utterance of my name 
this time alternating with shouts and peals of laughter. On 
riding up I found him reading, for the second time, an auto¬ 
graph note from General Jackson, addressed to Captain Mc¬ 
Carthy, and to the following effect: that if we had not al¬ 
ready received orders to move we would receive them in a 
few moments; that Robert Stiles must not report to him 
until further orders; that he didn’t want any “untried man” 
about him when about to move. 

The relations of our captain to the better soldiers in the 
battery were peculiar and enjoyable. On duty he was our 
commanding officer, off duty our intimate friend. I used to 
call him “the intelligent young Irishman,” and to tell the 
following story in explanation: Just before the Howitzers 
left Richmond, in the spring of ’61, General Magruder called 
upon Major Randolph to send him a suitable man for a 
courier, adding, “intelligent young Irishman preferred”— 
and McCarthy was sent as “filling the bill.” The captain 
had long been “laying for me,” as the saying is, and now he 
had his revenge—“Old Jack” had conferred upon me ortho¬ 
dox Presbyterian baptism as “the untried man,” and so far 
as the captain was concerned, certainly the name “stuck.” 

What would he and I have given, two or three days later, 
to recall the action of the next few moments. I distinctly 
remember the general appearance of General Jackson’s note. 
It was written in pencil on a small half sheet of bluish paper, 
evidently torn from a letter, and I remember, too, how Cap¬ 
tain McCarthy—laughing still—tore it up, when he had read 
it out three or four times, and how the fragments floated 
adown the air. I told Mrs. Jackson of the circumstance not 
long after the war, and she pronounced the contents of the 
note, and particularly the last clause, to be strongly illus¬ 
trative of the directness and concentration which rendered 


FREDERICKSBURG TO CHANCELLORSVILLE l6l 

her husband oblivious of everything but the one idea at any 
one time having possession of him. 

A few days later, but after Jackson’s death, my father 
gave me what I may term the obverse, or face side, of this 
incident. He was at Jackson’s headquarters when the Gen¬ 
eral, as it were in a tone of inquiry, said: 

“Doctor, I understand you have a son in the army?” 

“Yes, General,” my father answered, “I have three of 
them.” 

“One is like you, isn’t he?” 

“No, sir; I don’t know that either of them is specially like 
me.” 

.Then, somewhat impatiently: 

“Well, your oldest son is named Robert, isn’t he?” 

“Yes, Bob is my eldest son.” 

“From what I have heard of him, I think I should like to 
have him with me.” 

“Well, sir, I would be delighted to have him come.” 

“But it isn’t for you to say, Doctor; he ought to be al¬ 
lowed to decide for himself. Besides, both of you should 
consider that the probability of his being killed will be 
greatly increased. I am liable to make mistakes in my or¬ 
ders and to send a man into danger that might be avoided 
by going around some longer and less perilous route. But 
he must not stop to consider this. He must take his life 
in his hand and carry my orders as I send them.” 

“Yes, sir; I think I understand, and I am sure Bob will 
carry your orders as you send them. His life is in God’s 
hands. Longer or shorter, I would like to have him spend it 
with you, and I am sure that would be his choice, too.” 

“But, Doctor, you have no right to decide for him. Tell 
him all I have told you, and let him decide for himself.” 

“But, General, I do decide and have decided, for Bob and 
for myself. He will be delighted to come to you.” 

“Very well, sir. In my opinion you have no right to 
make this decision, but if you insist upon taking the re¬ 
sponsibility, I’ll send for your son.” 

And he did, with the result already given. 


11 


162 FOUR YEARS UNDER MARSE ROBERT 

He was not as sure of me as my dear father was; to Jack- 
son, certainly, I was ; “the untried man.” I have often thought 
what might have been if I had gone to him that day. Of 
course my blood would have been up, and the chances are 
very great that I would have fallen that fateful night in the 
Chancellorsville Wilderness, when the wondrous captain did 
make one of those mistakes to which he said he was “liable,” 
and which then cost, not a little life like mine, but that great 
life of his, upon which destiny and history hung. 

Among the pet names with which our constant lover, the 
Army of the Potomac, was wont to soften and sweeten its 
early spring wooings of us was “Damned sassafras-tea¬ 
drinking rebels.” If a trifle vigorous and not even a trifle 
euphonious, it was yet certainly appropriate and suggestive, 
for the first steady spring sunshine, that dried out the roads 
and caused the sassafras buds to swell, sent the first tremors 
of returning life darting through the coils of the great ser¬ 
pentine armies which had lain torpid in the winter’s cold, 
until suddenly the one or the other monster glided, hissing 
from its den, and delivered its stroke. To our friends, the 
enemy, the only relation between the swelling of the sassa¬ 
fras buds and the spring-burst of battle was chronological; 
but with us the sassafras amounted almost to a sub-commis¬ 
sariat—we chewed it, we drank it, we smelled it, and it was 
ever at hand without the trouble or expense of transport. 

All through the latter part of April, ’63, even more than 
the normal premonitory spring shudderings were noted 
throughout the great winter camps and quarters of the 
P'ederal army corps across the river, and very soon the 
marvelous army telegraph was in full operation. Every sur¬ 
viving veteran of either side will understand what I mean. 
It was really little less than miraculous the way in which in¬ 
formation—often astonishingly correct—as to what had 
happened or was about to happen, was transmitted along the 
lines of the army. Partial explanations readily occur, but I 
have yet to meet the first intelligent and observant soldier 
of the Army of Northern Virginia who is not ready to admit 
that, in some instances, the rapid transmission of news and 
the detailed accuracy of forecast that sifted through the 
army were at the time, and remain to-day, inexplicable. 


FREDERICKSBURG TO CHANCELLORSVILLE 163 

Of course we knew of the resignation or removal of 
Burnside and the appointment of Hooker as his successor, 
late in January, and we had seen, too, the remarkable order of 
the latter, issued upon assuming command, in which he de¬ 
clared that: “In equipment, intelligence, and valor, the enemy 
is our inferior. Let us never hesitate to give him battle when¬ 
ever we can find him.” From this order, as well as from his 
military history, with which we were familiar, we “knew 
our man.” We knew also the atmosphere that surrounded 
his appointment, but I for one never saw, until long after 
the war, the remarkable letter of Mr. Lincoln to his ap¬ 
pointee, which not only revives and bears out my recollection 
of the spirit of the times, but fills me with amazement that a 
self-respectful officer could have accepted an appointment 
confirmed or accompanied by such a letter: 

Executive Mansion, 

Washington, D. G, 

January 26, 1863. 

Major-General Hooker: 

General :—I have placed you at the head of the Army of the Potomac. 
Of course I have done this upon what appears to me to be sufficient 
reasons. And yet I think it best for you to know that there are some 
things in regard to which I am not quite satisfied with you. I believe you 
“to be a brave and skilful soldier, which, of course, I like. I also believe 
you do not mix politics with your profession, in which you are right. You 
"have confidence in yourself, which is a valuable, if not an indispensable 
-quality. You are ambitious, which, within reasonable bounds, does good 
rather than harm. But I think that during General Burnside’s command 
•of the army you have taken counsel of your ambition and thwarted 
him as much as you could, in which you did a great wrong both to the 
country and to a meritorious and honorable brother officer. I have 
heard in such a way as to believe it of your recently saying that both 
i:he army and the Government needed a dictator. Of course it was not 
for this, but in spite of it, that I have given you the command. Only 
those generals who gain successes can set up as dictators. What I now 
.ask of you is military success, and I will risk the dictatorship. The Gov¬ 
ernment will support you to the utmost of its ability, which is neither 
more nor less than it has done and will do for all commanders. I much 
fear the spirit you have aided to infuse into the army, of criticising their 
•.commander and withholding confidence from him, will now turn upon 


164 


FOUR YEARS UNDER MARSE ROBERT 


you. I shall assist you as far as I can to put it down. Neither you nor 
Napoleon, if he were alive again, could get any good out of an army 
while such a spirit prevails in it. And now, beware of rashness! beware 
of rashness! but with energy and sleepless vigilance, go forward and 
give us victories. Yours very truly, 

A. LINCOLN. 

One of the ablest discussions of Chancellorsville from the 
Confederate side is to be found in an address delivered by- 
Gen. Fitzhugh Lee before the Virginia Division of the 
Army of Northern Virginia, on the 24th of October, 1879. 
In that address the author says of this battle that, “It brings 
before the military student as high a type of an offensive 
battle as ever adorned the pages of history.” Col. Walter 
Taylor says: “Of all the battles fought by the Army of 
Northern Virginia, that of Chancellorsville stands first as 
illustrating the consummate audacity and military skill of 
commanders and the valor and determination of the men.” 
It is probable that the general consensus of opinion among 
the surviving officers and soldiers of the Confederacy con¬ 
curs in these estimates. My own conception of the matter 
was at the time, and has ever since been, that the brilliant 
genius and audacious courage of Lee and Jackson shone so 
conspicuously throughout these operations, partly because 
the plan of their adversary was truly great—far superior to 
anything that had theretofore been projected against Lee 
and his staunch soldiers. 

The battle is of such exceptional interest, and at the same 
time savors so much of the marvelous, that I ask pardon for 
making a lengthy quotation from Colonel Taylor’s book, 
premising that it was twelve miles or more from Deep Run, 
below Fredericksburg, where Sedgwick and Early opposed 
each other, to Chancellorsville, the position selected by 
Hooker as the base of his main operations and where he had 
concentrated the bulk of his army. On pages 83-5 of his 
“Four Years with General Lee,” Colonel Taylor says: 

General Lee, with fifty-seven thousand troops of all arms, intrenched 
along the line of hills south of the Rappahannock, near Fredericksburg, 
was confronted by General Hooker, with the Army of the Potomac, one 
hundred and thirty-two thousand strong, occupying the bluffs on the 
opposite side of the river. 


FREDERICKSBURG TO CHANCELLORSVILLE 1 65 

On the 29th of April the Federal commander essayed to put into exe¬ 
cution an admirably conceived plan of operations, from which he doubt¬ 
less concluded that he could compel either the evacuation by General 
Lee of his strongly fortified position, or else his utter discomfiture, when 
unexpectedly and vigorously assailed upon his left flank and rear by the 
“finest army on the planet”—really more than twice the size of his own. 

A formidable force, under General Sedgwick, was thrown across the 
river below Frederickburg, and made demonstrations of an intention to 
assail the Confederate front. Meanwhile, with great celerity and 
secrecy, General Hooker, with the bulk of his army, crossed at the upper 
fords, and in an able manner and wonderfully short time had concen¬ 
trated four of his seven army corps, numbering fifty-six thousand men, 
at Chancellorsville, about ten miles west of Fredericksburg. His pur¬ 
pose was now fully developed to General Lee, who, instead of waiting its 
further prosecution, immediately determined on the movement the least 
expected by his opponent. He neither proceeded to make strong his 
left against attack from the direction of Chancellorsville, nor did he 
move southward so as to put his army between that of General Hooker 
and the Confederate capital; but leaving General Early with about nine 
thousand men to take care of General Sedgwick, he moved with the re¬ 
mainder of his army, numbering forty-eight thousand men, toward 
Chancellorsville. As soon as the advance of the enemy was encountered, 
it was attacked with vigor, and very soon the Federal army was on the 
defensive in its apparently impregnable, position. It was not the part 
of wisdom to attempt to storm the stronghold; but Sedgwick would cer¬ 
tainly soon be at work in the rear, and Early, with his inadequate force, 
could not do more than delay and hamper him. It was, therefore, imper¬ 
atively necessary to strike—to strike boldly, effectively and at once. 
There could be no delay. Meanwhile two more army corps had joined 
General Hooker, who had now about Chancellorsville ninety-one thous¬ 
and men—six corps, except one division of the second corps (Couch’s) 
which had been left with Sedgwick at Fredericksburg. It was a critical 
position for the Confederate commander, but his confidence in his 
trusted lieutenant and brave men was such that he did not long hesi¬ 
tate. Encouraged by the counsel and confidence of General Jackson, he 
determined still further to divide his army; and while he, with the 
divisions of Anderson and McLaws, less than fourteen thousand men, 
should hold the enemy in his front, he would hurl Jackson upon his 
flank and rear and crush and crumble him as between the upper and 
nether millstone. The very boldness of the movement contributed much 
to insure its success. 

This battle illustrates most admirably the peculiar talent and individ¬ 
ual excellence of Lee and Jackson. For quickness of perception, bold¬ 
ness in planning and skill in directing, Lee had no superior; for celerity 


166 


FOUR YEARS UNDER MARSE ROBERT 


in his movements, audacity in the execution of bold designs and impet¬ 
uosity in attacking, Jackson had not his peer. 

About the 28th of April dispatches by the army or grape¬ 
vine telegraph began to come in very rapidly, and that, too, 
minutely and correctly revealing the situation. We were at 
the time in camp a little back of the main fortified line. 
That evening, I think it was, we received orders to be ready 
to move at a moment’s notice. Very early next morning we 
heard firing in the direction of Fredericksburg. It was very 
foggy, and we could see nothing, but understood that a 
heavy force of the enemy was crossing to our side. They 
remained all day concealed under the river bank, but at 
night—I think the night of the 29th—deployed out into po¬ 
sition in the great plain. Meanwhile our battery had been 
ordered to the same position it had occupied in the battle of 
Fredericksburg, and all during that day Hooker’s plan of 
operations was becoming more and more clearly developed, 
and with Sedgwick in our front and Hooker in overwhelm¬ 
ing force in the rear of our left flank, we deeply felt its 
power. 

The discussion waxed hot as to what Marse Robert would 
do. Until he decided, none of us knew what was best, yet 
the counter plot was intensely absorbing, and when at last—I 
think it was the night of the 30th—orders came for us to 
limber up and move out by the little road by which we had 
come in, and which ran at right angles between the lines 
and the main road running parallel to the river, the interest 
was intense, and the dry betting ran high as to whether, 
when we struck the main road, it would be “head of 
column to the right” or to “the left.” If the latter, then we 
would know Marse Robert had concluded that it was the 
part of wisdom to put his army between Sedgwick and Rich¬ 
mond and to maneuver all the attacking columns of his ene¬ 
mies to his front. In that case we might exhale a deep, full 
breath; for a little while, at least, the extreme tension would 
be off. But if the horses’ heads turned to the right, then 
we knew well that it was to be the closest and deadliest grap¬ 
ple we had ever experienced. I cannot remember which I 
thought the wiser alternative or what part I took in the dis- 


FREDERICKSBURG TO CHANCELLORSVILLE 167 

cussion; but I do distinctly recall that when the first gun 
struck the main road and the heads of the leaders swung 
around to the right, I drew in my breath and set my teeth, 
calling upon what was best and strongest in my entire being 
to brace me for the struggle. 

I think it was a day or so before we finally left the Fred¬ 
ericksburg lines that there occurred one of the most remark¬ 
able minor incidents I witnessed from the beginning to the 
end of the war. We had lifted the ammunition, chest out 
of the hole, back of and beneath the little work we had 
been occupying, and had replaced it upon the gun carriage 
and limbered up the piece. A group of about a dozen men, 
not all belonging to our battery, were standing upon the 
earth-work gazing across the river bottom to the Stafford 
side, when a little puff of white smoke indicated that the 
gentlemen on the other side had determined to try their long- 
range guns. The shell flew a little too high, but directly above 
us and too close to be comfortable. Before quite reaching us, 
however, it began to wobble and turn over, indicating that 
the projectile or propulsive force was well nigh exhausted. 
My recollection is that we could see the shell distinctly. An 
infantryman jumped from the work into the hole just va¬ 
cated by the limber chest. The shell exploded just after it 
passed us, and the base came hurtling back and actually 
dashed out the brains of that man, the only man who had 
not stood his ground. Several other shots were fired, but 
not a man flinched and not another man was injured. 

I was reminded of a story of the Emperor Napoleon, who 
in visiting his picket line with the corporal of the guard 
came to a position which commanded just the view he want¬ 
ed of the enemy’s lines, but was exposed to a galling and dan¬ 
gerous fire from their sharpshooters. The little corporal 
was standing, absorbed as was his wont when analyzing a 
battle-field, head sunk between his shoulders, hands behind 
his back and limbs far apart. He turned to speak to the cor¬ 
poral of the guard, and just as he did so a ball passed be¬ 
tween the Emperor’s legs and killed the corporal, crouching 
behind him for protection. Two soldiers stooped to pick 
up the body, but the Emperor hissed out, “Behold the just 
fate of the coward. Let the carrion rot.” 


CHAPTER XIII 


CHANCELLORSVILLE 

On the March—The Light Division Passes Our Guns—Marse Robert 
Passes the Light Division—The Two Little Dogs of the Battalion 
—Two of Our Guns Take Chancellorsville in Reverse—Interview 
with General McLaws—Entire Regiment from New Haven, Conn., 
Captured—Brother William and Marse Robert—Sedgwick—Hooker 
—His Battle Orders—His Compliment to Lee’s Army—Lee’s Order 
Announcing Jackson’s Death. 

I recall but one or two features of the march to Chancel- 
lorsville. We were with McLaws’ division, and of the 
14,000 (Anderson’s and McLaws’ commands) with which 
General Lee undertook to hold, and did hold, the front of 
Hooker’s 92,000, while Jackson, with the balance of our 
forces, swung around his right flank and rear. 

Two of our batteries, the Howitzers and Manly’s, left 
Fredericksburg at midnight, April 30th, 1863, and early on 
the morning of May 1st were drawn up in column on the 
side of the Old Turnpike, head toward Chancellorsville, to 
allow the “Light Division,” as Gen. A. P. Hill’s command 
was called, to pass. Jackson, as we understood, was some¬ 
where ahead, and Hill’s superb troops seemed to be re¬ 
solved that he should not be compelled to wait even a mo¬ 
ment for them. They were in light marching order, and I 
thought I had never seen anything equal to the swinging, 
silent stride with which they fairly devoured the ground. 
The men were magnified in the morning mist which over¬ 
hung the low flat-lands they were traversing, and at the same 
time imparted a ghostly indistinctness of outline, which 
added to the impressiveness of the scene. All was silent as 
the grave, save the muffled and almost synchronous tread of 
the thousands of feet in the soft road, and the low clatter or 
jingle of accoutrements. 


CHANCELLORSVILLE 


169 


There was a sudden outburst in the rear of tumultuous 
shoutings, which rapidly swept toward us, and very soon 
General Lee, with a full staff, galloped to the front, passing 
between us and the Light Division, which, however, had 
now halted and stacked arms across the road from our guns. 
I cannot recall a moment of higher enthusiasm during the 
four years of the war. The troops were transported with 
the wildest excitement and the General also appeared to be 
unusually impressed. I cannot say that it was his habit, 
but I distinctly remember that on this occasion he lifted his 
hat, taking it by the crown with his right hand and holding 
it suspended above his majestic head as far as we could see 
him. I remember, too, how the men greeted him, shouting, 
“What a head, what a head! See that glorious head! God 
bless it, God bless it !” 

In a short time the Light Division got under way again, 
resuming its swaying, swinging, panther-like step, others 
of Jackson’s command following them. When the last of his 
troops had passed, we resumed our march and continued 
it until we finally reached the position assigned us, with 
McLaws’ division, which formed a part of the thin Con¬ 
federate line covering Hooker’s front, and a most peculiar 
position it was. It was an old house site in a small clear¬ 
ing, but the main building had been burned or destroyed, 
apparently years ago, while one or two outbuildings were 
standing. Our guns came into battery in an old pansy 
bed, which before we left was spattered with splotches of 
intenser color. We could see absolutely nothing of the 
enemy, nor of any other part of our own lines; indeed the 
entire region was a gloomy thicket and our infantry line so 
stretched and attenuated that the men were scarcely in sight 
even of each other. It was currently, and I have every rea¬ 
son to believe correctly, reported, that in inspecting the line 
of his division, General McLaws found one of his brigades 
actually faced to the rear. 

Although the enemy was not in sight from our position, 
nor we from theirs, yet we interchanged occasionally a con¬ 
siderable fire, which resulted on our side in a few sad and 
ghastly casualties; but we have already spoken of these and 


170 FOUR YEARS UNDER MARSE ROBERT 

may speak of them again in another connection. For the 
present, let us turn to something of a less painful nature. 

There were two little dogs in the battalion which afforded 
not only a good deal of amusement, but also a field for 
some interesting observation and discrimination. Both were 
small, the Troupe Artillery dog, the larger of the two, 
about the size of a small coon without a tail, which he in 
general resembled. He was dark, stone gray on his back, 
inclining (somewhat more than a coon) to tan or fawn color 
underneath. He had also rough, coarse hair; short, stout 
legs, and, as implied, little or no tail. He had entered the 
service early, joining the battery during the unfortunate 
campaign in Western Virginia, and was named after the 
commanding general, “Robert Lee.” He was very plucky 
in a personal difficulty, but I blush to say, an abject coward 
in battle. The Howitzer dog, whom we christened “Stone¬ 
wall Jackson,” came to us a mere puppy in the summer of 
1862, after the battles around Richmond, and while we were 
waiting for the re-equipment of the battery. He was a Welsh 
fice, very small, but beautifully formed, gleaming white in 
color, with a few spots of jet black, his hair fine and short, 
and lying close and smooth. He did not carry guns enough, 
metaphorically speaking, to amount to much in a canine en¬ 
counter, but he was a born warrior, a perfect hero in battle. 
When our guns were in action he was always careering 
wildly about them, and in any pause of their hoarse thunders 
the shrill treble of his tiny bark was always to be heard. 

In the battle of Chancellorsville, while we were occupy¬ 
ing the position above described, I had occasion to go down 
the little declivity in rear of the gun to the caissons. I had just 
left the battery firing actively and Stonewall even more than 
usually excited, when my eye chanced to light upon poor 
little Bob Lee sneaking to the rear, in fright absolutely pitia¬ 
ble. It may serve as an excuse for him that he had gotten 
separated from his company, which had been left behind at 
Fredericksburg with Early. To my astonishment, he made 
for a large tree, back of which and as close in and under as 
possible he crept, and crouched and squatted, very much as 
a demoralized man might have done. The action and the 


CHANCELLORSVILLE 


171 

purpose were unmistakable. I do not know that I could 
have believed it if I had not seen it with my own eyes, but 
there was no room for doubt. One might not feel gener¬ 
ously and sympathetically inclined toward a man under such 
circumstances, but it is pleasant to be able to say that little 
Bob’s prudent precautions accomplished their object. As 
I have always understood, he passed safely through the war 
and followed the men of his battery to Georgia. 

Stonewall was a remarkable little animal. It was sur¬ 
prising that he was not lost or killed in action, especially 
when we had to change our position rapidly under fire, 
which was very often. Under such circumstances, whoever 
happened to be nearest the little fellow, if by a frantic dive 
he could manage to get him in time, would lift the lid of a 
limber chest, drop him in an empty partition, and clap the 
lid down again before the gun dashed off with the rest; but 
as soon as it came into battery in the new position, No. 6, 
before getting at his fuses, would first lift the little warrior 
from his dark, close quarters and drop him on the ground, 
where, in a twinkling, he would recover his balance, resume 
his part in the fight and keep it up until, in another move, he 
was again imprisoned in transitu, either in an ammunition 
chest or under someone’s arm. 

He was an intelligent, companionable little chap, and the 
boys taught him some uncommon tricks. His special mas¬ 
ter, teacher, patron and friend was dear old “Van,”—chief 
of the second detachment,—who could do anything from 
shoeing a horse to making a clock out of pine bark, and 
must of necessity be always doing something, even if it 
were but training a puppy. Van taught Stonewall to at¬ 
tend roll-call, and to sit up on his haunches, next to him, on 
the advanced rank of non-commissioned officers, and he 
made a little pipe for him, which Stonewall would hold 
firmly in his mouth when Van had once inserted it between 
his teeth. Then when the orderly sergeant, before beginning 
the roll, called “Pipes out!” Van would stoop and slip Stone- 
wall’s pipe from his mouth to his left paw, which would then 
instantly drop to his side with the other, and the little cor¬ 
poral would stand, or sit, stiffly and staunchly in the position 
of a soldier, eyes front, until the company was dismissed. 


172 FOUR YEARS UNDER MARSE ROBERT 

Stonewall was stolen from us several times by Harry 
Hayes’ brigade, his Louisiana Creoles having the ungovern¬ 
able passion of the French soldier for pets. At last the 
cunning thieves succeeded in hiding him, and we lost him 
finally, to the deep regret, not to say grief, of every man in 
the battery. 

After fighting for some hours in a very indecisive and 
unsatisfactory fashion, in the unsatisfactory position above 
described, two of our pieces, my gun one of them, were ad¬ 
vanced by a neighborhood road, several hundred yards to 
the right and front and to the top of a hill from which we 
could see the entire formation of the Federal lines about 
Chancellorsville. Who discovered this position I never 
knew, but it was one of the most remarkable, perhaps the 
most remarkable, I ever saw. It was on the left flank and 
rear of the Federal lines about Chancellorsville house, which 
was not more than a thousand or twelve hundred yards dis¬ 
tant from our guns. The Federal artillery was as regularly 
and accurately stationed as if on parade or at drill—guns in 
front and in action, the motions of the cannoneers at the 
manual of the piece being distinctly recognizable, except when 
the smoke of the successive discharges momentarily shut them 
off; limbers the required distance in rear of guns, caissons 
in rear of limbers, drivers sitting bolt upright on their 
horses, and three heavy, black lines of infantry lying down 
back of the artillery. 

I never before felt such a rising of my heart into my 
throat as I did while lying just behind the crest of the ridge, 
gazing intently upon this scene and aiding the gunners of 
the two pieces in making careful estimate of the distance. 
We were unwilling to waste a shot, knowing that, in the 
very nature of things, such an opportunity would not be 
long vouchsafed us. In the pauses or subsidences of the 
cannonade we could hear the clear, high-pitched, thrilling, 
dauntless yell of our charging infantry, and we felt what 
our fire, if well directed, might mean to those gallant fel¬ 
lows. We had already unlimbered and moved the guns 
forward by hand, so that their muzzles just failed to pro¬ 
ject over the brow of the hill. We went back to the limbers, 


CHANCELLORSVILLE 


173 


took out two shells and cut the fuses accurately in accord¬ 
ance with our estimate of the distance, loaded and ran both 
pieces forward again until they just cleared the crest of the 
ridge; then, running down the screws and elevating the 
muzzles appropriately to the distance, every man in the de¬ 
tachment fell into place, the primers were inserted in the 
vents and both lanyards pulled simultaneously. The ear 
detected but one discharge, and the two shells flew scream¬ 
ing and bursting together in the very midst of the mass of 
Federal artillery, exploding certainly one, and, as it seemed, 
two, ammunition chests or caissons. 

The blow was utterly unexpected, the effect overwhelm¬ 
ing, and we gave them no time to recover, but kept throwing 
in shell as rapidly as the guns could be loaded and discharg¬ 
ed, until the entire hillside seemed to be cleared for the time 
of both artillery and infantry. Suddenly we heard the regu¬ 
lar huzzas of Federal infantry very close to us, apparently 
at the foot of the hill on which we stood, but concealed by 
the scrub forest. No pickets had been thrown out in our 
front so far as we knew; there was no infantry support with 
us; Minie balls began to drop in very briskly; the hillside we 
had cleared filled up again, and it was deemed prudent for us 
to retire. 

Strange it is, but I have not the slightest recollection as 
to what artillery officer was in charge of us, but I do remem¬ 
ber that in retiring to our former position we passed very 
close to Gen. Lafayette McLaws, commanding the division 
to which generally, as on this occasion, we were attached. I 
was more deeply stirred than I had ever before been, and have 
some indistinct recollection of urging one or two of our ar¬ 
tillery officers that the eight guns we had with us should be 
advanced to the position our two guns had just left, accom¬ 
panied by infantry support. 

The suggestion was not approved by them, and I went to 
General McLaws with it. He received me without the 
slightest reproof for my impertinence, but said we had done 
our work with two rifles, and that from what he knew of the 
ground the distance must be too great for smooth-bore 
guns. I assured him that he was misinformed, and that I 


174 FOUR YEARS UNDER MARSE ROBERT 

knew what I was talking about, as I had helped to estimate 
the distance and cut the fuses. I do not now exactly recall 
what the distance was, but I am positive now, as I was 
then, that it was within range of our shortest-ranged guns, 
and I insisted that with our eight guns in action on that hill 
(the other eight had been left at Fredericksburg with Early) 
we could fairly blow up Chancellorsville. While I was say¬ 
ing this Major Goggin, adjutant-general of the division, and 
a fine soldier, rode up and confirmed all I had said. I have 
an indistinct recollection that we boosted the general, who 
was short and stout, to the top of an old tobacco barn, but 
his view was very little extended even from that vantage 
ground. Nevertheless, he came to our opinion and sent the 
order for all our eight guns to advance to the position in¬ 
dicated, supported by Semmes’ brigade. 

I was almost delirious with joy, and ran back to the guns, 
anticipating a scene of destruction and of triumph such as 
no one of us had ever before witnessed. But just as the two 
batteries were drawn out in column on the road we learned 
that our troops had carried the enemy’s works, that he had 
abandoned the position we were to have shelled, and our op¬ 
portunity was gone. Semmes, however, went right on, and 
by a skilful movement and a short, sharp fight, cut off and 
captured a Federal force which seemed to have been sent for¬ 
ward with the view of capturing our two rifled guns. A lit¬ 
tle later he marched his prisoners into the clearing we had 
occupied, and it turned out that he had an entire regiment, 
I think of “hundred-day men,” from New Haven, Conn. 

General Lee, convinced that there was, for the present at 
least, no more dangerous fight in Hooker, had ridden 
through to General McLaws’ position to talk with him 
about turning back to help Early take care of Sedgwick. He 
and McLaws were conferring, I think, at the moment on 
horseback. My enthusiasm had spent itself, or rather had 
oozed out with our disappointment, and I was walking down 
the front of the captured regiment, kept, however, at proper 
distance by the guard which had been placed over them. I 
had heard where the prisoners hailed from and was carefully 
scanning their faces, recognizing many of them. At last a 


CHANCELLORSVILLE 


175 


little fellow who had been in my Sunday-school class in 
New Haven recognized me. How he happened to do this 
is a mystery, as there was not a trace of my former self 
visible, except my height and my muscular figure. I had 
lost my hat, my hair was close-shingled, skin tanned red 
brown; I had on only flannel shirt, pants, belt and shoes; 
shirt front wide open, sleeves rolled up, clothes and skin 
spattered black with powder water from the sponge—in¬ 
deed I was, all in all, about as desperate-looking a ruffian as 
could well be found or imagined. But when this little chap, 
through all this disguise and transformation, recognized 
me and called out my name, there was a simultaneous shout 
•of “Bob Stiles” from many throats. General Lee called me 
to him and asked whether I really knew “those people,”— 
the peculiar phrase which he employed habitually in speaking 
of the Northern people or the Federal soldiery,—and upon 
my telling him that I did, he ordered the guard to pass me 
in the lines, telling me to find out what I could and let him 
know. He also offered to do anything in his power for any 
prisoner whose circumstances I might think required his in¬ 
tervention, and in this way I arranged a special exchange for 
a young man named Sheldon, whom I had known at Yale or 
-at a preparatory school in New Haven. I also gathered con¬ 
siderable information, which I gave to the commanding gen¬ 
eral. 

A short time after this, I cannot say exactly how long, 
hut that same evening and before we started back after 
Sedgwick, General McLaws called me to him and said I 
ought not to be in the ranks; that I was right about that 
movement of all our guns to that advanced position, and 
this showed I had a gift for handling artillery; that he 
would send for a commission as captain and have me as¬ 
signed to the command of a certain Georgia battery which 
he mentioned; that it was true this battery had a way of 
rgetting its captains killed and wounded, but that bad luck 
like that didn’t last forever, and that it was time the luck 
was turning with this battery. I thanked him heartily, but 
told him that I had not discovered the commanding position 
ffie referred to and didn’t know who was entitled to the credit 


176 FOUR YEARS UNDER MARSE ROBERT 

of pointing it out; that I had simply reported what we had 
seen and done—other men no less than I; that as to the bat¬ 
tery he had mentioned, while I thought I could sincerely 
say that the fate of its former captains would not deter 
me, yet I presumed there were officers in this battery who 
deserved and would expect promotion, and if so I would not 
be willing to cut them out of their proper dues; and besides, 
I much questioned whether I was really competent to be put 
at once in command of a battery in the field. He seemed to 
be a little disappointed at what he evidently thought my lack 
of proper ambition, but said he would talk with me further 
about it, and I left him, making a great effort not to show 
how profoundly moved I was. Here, for the third time 
within a week, was promotion offered and a door opened be¬ 
fore me; for while I had returned the commission in the en¬ 
gineer troops, yet I could not be sure it was not intended for 
me, especially as it began to appear as if there was a general 
consensus that I should be promoted. 

Shortly after I left General McLaws, he and General 
Lee resumed their conference, and, just as they did so, there 
occurred an incident which beautifully revealed the equipoise 
of General Lee’s character and the charm of his manner. 

If any of the minor characters mentioned in these remin¬ 
iscences has a distinct personality every way worthy of ap¬ 
proval and of remembrance, it is “Brother William,” the 
consecrated, courageous chaplain of the Seventeenth Missis¬ 
sippi, or rather of Barksdale’s brigade—the real hero of the 
great revival at Fredericksburg. He, of course, had re¬ 
mained behind there, with his brigade, under the general 
command of Early, to watch Sedgwick. 

I was standing in the shade of a tree, near our guns, which 
had been ordered to draw out on the road, head of column 
to the rear, that is, toward Fredericksburg,—an order and 
movement which we all well understood,—when my atten¬ 
tion was called to a horseman coming at full speed from 
the direction in which we were heading, and as he drew 
near I saw it was “Brother William,” and that he was 
greatly excited. My recollection is that he did not have a 
saddle, but was riding upon a blanket or cloth of some 


C H AN CELLORSVILLE 


*77 


kind, and that his horse was reeking with sweat and panting 
from exertion. When his eye fell upon General Lee he 
made directly for him, and I followed as fast as I could. 
Re dashed to the very feet of the commanding general, in¬ 
deed, almost upon him, and gasping for breath, his eyes 
starting from their sockets, began to tell of dire disaster at 
Fredericksburg—Sedgwick had smashed Early and was 
rapidly coming on in our rear. 

I have never seen anything more majestically calm than 
General Lee was; I felt painfully the contrast between him 
and dear little Brother William. Something very like a 
grave, sweet smile began to express itself on the General’s 
face, but he checked it, and raising his left hand gently, as 
if to protect himself, he interrupted the excited speaker, 
checking and controlling him instantly, at the same time say¬ 
ing very quietly: 

“I thank you very much, but both you and your horse 
are fatigued and overheated. Take him to that shady tree 
yonder and you and he blow and rest a little. I’m talking to 
General McLaws just now. I’ll call you as soon as we are 
through.” 

I said Brother William was at once dominated and con¬ 
trolled, and he was—but not quite satisfied. He began a 
mild protest: “But, General!” but he did not persist in it— 
he simply could not. He had already dismounted, and he 
started back with me to the tree, leading his horse. 

Unfortunately, I had none of General Lee’s power over 
him, and he began to pour out to me his recital of disaster 
and prediction of ruin. All was lost below, Sedgwick had 
stormed the heights and seized the town, the brigade had 
been cut off, and, he feared, captured; Early had been beaten 
and pushed roughly aside, and at least 30,000 victorious 
troops were rapidly pressing on in our rear. Substantially, 
he alone was left to tell the tale, and had fortunately been 
able to secure this horse on which to come to tell it. If not 
already too late, it very soon would be, to do anything even 
to moderate the calamity. 

In vain I suggested that General Lee could not be ignorant 
of all this; that his scouts had, doubtless, given him informa- 


12 


178 


FOUR YEARS UNDER MARSE ROBERT 


tion; that General Early certainly would have found means 
to communicate with him; that Lee had beaten Hooker and 
his calm and self-reliant bearing clearly indicated that he felt 
himself to be master of the entire situation. But Brother 
William would not be comforted or reassured. General Lee 
had not been upon the spot and could not know; he had been 
and did know. The very calmness of the general showed 
he did not appreciate the gravity of the situation. While 
we were thus debating the matter, General Lee finished with 
McLaws, who at once started his division on the back track 
to reinforce Early and help him take care of Sedgwick—and, 
true to his promise, Marse Robert now called for Brother 
William, and, as he approached, greeted him with a smile, 
saying: 

“Now what were you telling us about Major Sedgwick?” 

Brother William again told his tale of woe—this time 
with somewhat diminished intensity and less lurid coloring. 
When he had finished the general thanked him, saying again: 

“I am very much obliged to you; the major is a nice 
gentleman; I don’t think he would hurt us very badly, but 
we are going to see about him at once. I have just sent 
General McLaws to make a special call upon him.” 

I did not, at the time, quite appreciate the marked pecu¬ 
liarity of General Lee’s allusion to Sedgwick, but, as I now 
understand, the latter had been a major in the old service, of 
the regiment of which Lee was colonel, and they had been 
somewhat intimate friends. 

There is a decided difference of opinion, and that among 
both Federal and Confederate authorities, as to whether or 
not Sedgwick heartily and vigorously supported and co¬ 
operated with Hooker’s plans in this campaign. Both 
Hooker and Warren reflect seriously upon him for failure 
to do so, and Early and Fitzhugh Lee, on the Confederate 
side, take a like view. The two latter estimate Sedgwick’s 
force at thirty thousand troops, while Early had only some 
ten thousand to oppose him. Fitz says in substance that 
Sedgwick’s attacks were desultory, nerveless, and easily 
repulsed, even by our very inferior force, until the extreme 
weakness of our lines was discovered under flag of truce 


CHANCELLORSVILLE 


179 


granted him to take care of his wounded. Then he attacked 
with more determination and captured Marye’s Heights 
and several pieces of artillery, but even then did not push 
his advantage with vigor. Barksdale seems to have been 
for the time separated from Early, and it was at this junc¬ 
ture that Mr. Owen procured the horse and galloped to 
Chancellorsville with his blood-curdling tale of disaster. A 
staff officer of General Early had, however, preceded him, 
as we afterwards learned. 

It was currently reported at the time that the whole of 
the Mississippi brigade would have been captured, as part 
of it was, had not the giant musketeer of the Twenty-first 
Regiment clubbed his gun and rushed bare-headed down the 
Rill upon the Federal troops who were climbing it. At this 
fearful apparition they broke and ran, and in the gap and 
confusion thus occasioned a large part of the brigade made 
its escape. 

After McLaws joined forces with Early, Sedgwick, 
though still outnumbering his foes, became the hunted rather 
than the hunter, and seems to have counted himself happy, 
under cover of the friendly darkness, to make his escape 
across the river. 

It is fair to say that some military critics take a different 
view of Sedgwick’s operations, and it may well be, after all, 
that Hooker’s lieutenant has suffered in general estimation 
mainly by reason of his being brought, under the circum¬ 
stances, into comparison with Lee’s matchless second and 
his absolutely perfect appreciation, support, and execution 
•of the plans of his great chief in this the most brilliant of 
his battles. 

Hooker’s own part in these operations would seem to have 
been more creditable, but his great weakness was a tendency 
to boasting. There was a striking contrast between the 
records he made for himself in his order book and in the 
field. When, on the 26th of January, 1863, he took com¬ 
mand of the Army of the Potomac, his first act was to 
christen it in the memorable, high-sounding phrase—“The 
Finest Army on the Planet.” On the same day, in General 
•Order No. 1, he emphasized the inferiority of its enemy, and 


i8o 


FOUR YEARS UNDER MARSE ROBERT 


added: “Let us never hesitate to give him battle whenever 
we can find him.” After just three months of waiting he 
did find him, right across the river where he had all the time 
been, and moved upon him. Then, after three days of really 
skilful maneuvering, on the 30th of April, as he took up his 
position at Chancellorsville, he issued his General Order No. 
47, congratulating his army that now, “Our enemy must 
ingloriously fly, or come out from behind his defenses and 
give us battle on our own ground, where certain destruc¬ 
tion awaits him.” The rash enemy chose the latter alterna¬ 
tive, but objected strongly to the predicted result of “certain 
destruction.” And lastly, on the 6th day of May, after he 
had abandoned his famous and almost impregnable position, 
and retired across the river in the dark, as Sedgwick had al¬ 
ready done, he published his General Order No. 49, of which 
he asked, but apparently never got, President Lincoln’s opin¬ 
ion—in which “The Major-General Commanding tenders to 
the army his congratulations on its achievements of the last 
seven days * * and adds: “The events of the last 
week may swell with pride the heart of every officer and sol¬ 
dier in this army.” 

All these, however, are but the blasts of the war trumpet, 
and are calculated to blind us to the admirable character 
of Hooker’s general plan and his creditable maneuvers in 
the attempted execution of it. In parting with him I can¬ 
not refrain from saying that no soldier of the Army of 
Northern Virginia can fail to kindle toward him, at least a 
little, upon reading his testimony before the Committee on 
the Conduct of the War, in which he gives the following 
curious and tortuous, yet, upon the whole, manly explana¬ 
tion of the defeat and failure of “The Finest Army on the 
Planet:” 

Our artillery had always been superior to that o«f the rebels, as was 
also our infantry, except in discipline; and that, for reasons not neces¬ 
sary to mention, never did equal Lee’s army. With a rank and file vastly 
inferior to our own, intellectually and physically, that army has, by dis¬ 
cipline alone, acquired a character for steadiness and efficiency unsur¬ 
passed, in my judgment, in ancient or modern times. We have not been 
able to rival it, nor has there been any near approximation to it in the 
other rebel armies. 


C H AN CELLORSVILLE 


181 


It is strange that I cannot recall when I first heard of 
Jackson's being wounded, nor even of the overwhelming ca¬ 
lamity of his death. There is an impression on my mind that 
I saw his body lying in state in the Capitol at Richmond; 
but upon reflection I am inclined to think this is an error 
and that I am confounding impressions derived from reading 
the detailed accounts in the daily press with the actual sight 
of the eye. The only reliable data I have, bearing upon the 
time of this visit to Richmond, is Beers’ burial there, at 
which I certainly was present. He fell on the 3rd of May 
and was buried on the field. It was warm weather and his 
re-interment at Richmond could not have been many days 
later. Jackson did not die until the 10th of May, and I 
could not have witnessed the funeral obsequies in Richmond 
unless I remained there longer than I now think I did. 

Under these circumstances, there being nothing of value 
I can add in the way of personal reminiscence, nothing 
would be gained by my repeating the familiar story of that 
week of fearful suspense or the heroic recital of the last in¬ 
terchange of confidence, admiration, and affection between 
the great leader and his peerless lieutenant. Suffice it to 
say, there are few passages in human story as lofty, as ten¬ 
der, or in every way as creditable to human nature. The 
following is the order which General Lee issued to his army 
announcing the death of Jackson: 

HEADQUARTERS ARMY OF NORTHERN VIRGINIA. 

General Order No. 61. 

With deep regret the commanding general announces the death of 
Lieutenant-General T. J. Jackson, who expired on the 10th instant, at 
quarter past three p. m. 

The daring, skill, and energy of this great and good soldier, by the 
decree of an All-wise Providence, are now lost to us. But while we 
■mourn his death, we feel that his spirit still lives, and will inspire the 
whole army with his indomitable courage and unshaken confidence in 
God as our hope and, strength. Let his name be a watch-word to his 
corps who have followed him to victory on so many fields. Let his 
officers and soldiers emulate his invincible determination to do every¬ 
thing in the defense of our loved Country, 


R. E. Lee, General. 


182 


FOUR YEARS UNDER MARSE ROBERT 


Meanwhile the commission in engineer troops had been re¬ 
turned to me, accompanied by directions to report at Rich¬ 
mond for orders. This seemed to settle the question. Evi¬ 
dently I could not wait for the chance of the reopening of 
the appointment on Jackson’s staff, or for the captaincy in 
artillery of which General McLaws had spoken, either of 
which I should have greatly preferred to the engineer ap¬ 
pointment. I had informed the Bureau when I returned the 
commission that I was not an engineer and, with this knowl¬ 
edge, the appointment had been confirmed. Besides, either 
before or when I reported in Richmond, I found that I owed 
my appointment to a lady; that Mrs. Gilmer, the wife of 
General Gilmer, the head of the Engineer Bureau of our 
service, had told her husband that she wished to nominate 
one officer when he made his appointments in engineer 
troops, and had nominated me, without any previous per¬ 
sonal acquaintance, basing her action upon what she had 
heard of me from others and particularly from my father, 
and out of regard for him. 

Under these circumstances, to decline the appointment 
was out of the question. So I tore myself away from my 
dear comrades, my own brother among them, and reported 
at Richmond for my orders, as directed. 


CHAPTER XIV 


FROM THE RAPPAHANNOCK TO THE POTOMAC 

The Engineer Troops—Jubal Early—His Ability and Devotion—His 
Caustic Tongue—Lee a Master of the “Offensive Defensive”—His 
Army Organized into Three Corps—He Turns Northward and 
Maneuvers Hooker Out of His Position on the Rappahannock—The 
Battle of Winchester—Fine Work—Large Captures—Scenes and 
Incidents of the Battle. 

It is singular that I cannot recall with distinctness any¬ 
thing that occurred during this visit to Richmond, save 
the burial of poor Beers; and as to that I remember only 
what I have related. I do not recall much enthusiasm or 
elation of spirit about my promotion; indeed I felt little, for 
it severed the strong ties that bound me to my old comrades; 
it removed me from a branch of the service which I loved 
and in which I felt competent to do efficient work, and trans¬ 
ferred me to another for which I possessed neither taste nor 
training. 

My orders were to report to Major-General Early, in the 
field, and in connection with the other officers of my com¬ 
pany to organize a company of engineer troops from men 
to be furnished us from his division. I do not remember 
where General Early was, but somewhere in the northern 
or central portion of the State, and I reported promptly at 
his headquarters, meeting there for the first time Captain 
Williamson, the commanding officer of our prospective com¬ 
pany, who proved to be a gentleman of character, a compe¬ 
tent engineer and thorough soldier, though, unfortunately, 
somewhat deaf. I do not think he heard all that was said 
by the general during our conference, or that he observed 
him quite as closely as I did. 

After the conference was over I saw Captain Williamson 
privately and asked him how much aid and co-operation he 


184 FOUR YEARS UNDER MARSE ROBERT 

expected from the general in getting up his company. He 
said he hardly knew, and asked my views, which were quite 
decided and decidedly expressed—to the effect that General 
Early had no idea of losing a musket from his division if 
he could avoid it; that he would aid us just so far as he was 
compelled to do so and no further; that our orders were 
somewhat defective, or at least not framed to meet such a 
case; that I did not mean to imply that the general was not 
right in the position he had taken, but that right or wrong he 
had clearly taken it; and as he was evidently a man of un¬ 
common intelligence and determination, I felt satisfied he 
would carry his point. 

In the course of two or three days the situation became 
clearly defined, the general taking little or no pains to con¬ 
ceal it, and I had another talk with Captain Williamson, 
who felt that nothing more could be done just now in the 
way of organizing the company, adding that General Early 
had asked him, for the present, to act as engineer officer on 
his staff. He had made no such suggestion or request in my 
case, and Captain Williamson seemed to feel badly on my ac¬ 
count ; but I begged him to think no more about it, assuring 
him that I had sense enough to see that any such action in 
my case was out of the question, as I was not an engineer. 
1 omitted to say that my orders entitled me to a horse to 
be furnished and fed, as I remember, by the quartermaster 
of the division, and the general was very kind and prompt 
in seeing that these requirements were complied with; but I 
saw clearly that I was neither needed nor desired on the 
division staff and that, if I remained, the best I could ex¬ 
pect would be the position and duty of a sort of upper 
courier, which I was not willing to assume. 

I therefore went directly to General Early and had a full 
talk with him. I did most of the talking, but he heartily 
acquiesced, and when I was through I felt sure we thor¬ 
oughly understood each other, and I thought he liked me. 
I told him I saw clearly that, for the present, no company 
of engineer troops was to be organized from his division; 
that indeed I rather thought the division pioneer corps, 
under command of Lieutenant, or Sergeant, Flood, was all 


FROM THE RAPPAHANNOCK TO THE POTOMAC 185 

the engineer company he cared to have. Flood was a New 
Orleans stevedore, a rough but very efficient man, who, 
among his many admirable qualifications, possessed this 
highly acceptable one, that he had no sort of objection to 
Old Jube’s airing his choice vocabulary of profane rhetoric 
about him, or his work, or his men whenever he might 
happen to need relief in that direction. 

I said further to the general that I thought the pioneer 
corps might perhaps be regarded as the nucleus of the fu¬ 
ture company of engineer troops, and while I had no idea of 
meddling with Flood’s work, which he was vastly better 
qualified to manage than I was, yet I could help him about 
his requisitions, reports, etc.; but that as we were evidently 
going into an active and aggressive campaign I thought I 
would, in action, fight in some battery of Col. Hilary Jones’ 
Battalion, if he thought he could make use of me—standing 
ready, however, at all times, to report back to Division 
Headquarters for staff duty or for anything I could at any 
time do for the general. 

This arrangement seemed to be entirely satisfactory to 
General Early, as it was also to Colonel Jones, in one or 
other of whose batteries—usually with the Charlottesville 
Artillery, a corps that reminded me somewhat of our old 
battery—I fought, whenever they were engaged, throughout 
the campaign, notably at Winchester and Gettysburg; 
sometimes in charge of one or more pieces, and again fight¬ 
ing as a private soldier at a gun, or in any position where 
they were weakest and most needed help. I said the ar¬ 
rangement seemed to be entirely satisfactory to General 
Early, and yet in connection with it there occurred a series 
of awkward and amusing incidents which admirably illus¬ 
trate some of the general’s strongly-marked traits. 

Soon after Gettysburg my brother and I passed and miss¬ 
ed each other, I riding over to the First Corps to learn what 
had befallen my friends of the old battery, while he came 
over to Early’s division of the Second to inquire for me. 
His description of the old general was so characteristic and 
vivid that to this day I am prone to imagine that I saw and 
heard instead of my brother. He said the sun was shining 


186 


FOUR YEARS UNDER MARSE ROBERT 


after the rain, and at Early’s headquarters he saw a man 
rather above middle age, heavily built, with stooping shoul¬ 
ders, a splendid head and a full gray-brown beard, sitting 
in his shirt sleeves on a camp stool, with one leg thrown 
over the other, his hands and apparently his every thought 
employed in combing out and smoothing a somewhat be¬ 
draggled black ostrich feather. My brother had no idea who 
this figure was, but he passed beyond him to inquire of some 
less absorbed person as to my welfare and whereabouts. 
The person addressed, probably some courier, did not hap¬ 
pen to know anything of me, and the feather dresser piped in 
a whining, querulous voice: 

“Who are you looking for—Stiles ? I can’t tell you where 
he is, but I can tell you where he ain’t. He ain’t with the 
division pioneer corps, where he belongs; I reckon your best 
chance to find him would be lying around with some bat¬ 
tery.” 

When my brother told me this, as he did when we next 
met, I was at once irritated and amused. It was after I had y 
with General Early’s approval, gone back to the old battalion 
to serve as its adjutant, under Colonel Cabell. I did not hap¬ 
pen to meet the general for some time, and meanwhile for¬ 
tune had smiled upon me in many ways. I was located to 
my entire satisfaction, had a fine horse, was better dressed 
and equipped every way, and was feeling generally satis¬ 
fied, independent, and happy. We had gotten back to the 
sacred soil of Old Virginia, and, under Clark’s Mountain, 
riding alone, I overtook and passed the general accompanied 
by only a single courier. My horse had the better action 
and movement, and I merely saluted as I rode rapidly by. 
I had gotten perhaps a hundred yards or more ahead, when 
the general called after me: 

“Hold on, Stiles;” and as he drew near, “you’re a little 
offish this morning.” 

“No, General, I think not.” 

“Well, what the devil’s the matter?” 

“Nothing in the world, sir, except that I didn’t suppose 
you’d care for the company of a man of whom the best you 
could say was that you felt sure he wasn’t where he ought 
to be.” 


FROM THE RAPPAHANNOCK TO THE POTOMAC 187 

Old Jube cocked his head and cut his eyes around at me 
with an expression of the intensest enjoyment, and in that 
inimitable voice drawled out: 

“Stiles, you are an infernal fool. Why, man, I meant 
what I said of you as a compliment. The main use I had 
for a pioneer corps was to bury dead Yankees and horses, 
and you never seemed to fancy that kind of business. You 
preferred to take a hand at the guns and prepare ’em to be 
buried, and I thought a damned sight more of you for it.” 

It is useless to say that this sledge-hammer stroke broke 
the ice; indeed the ice disappeared and I was thawed out 
completely. From that day the grand old fellow was one 
of the best friends I had in the army, and our friendship 
continued to the day of his death. I don’t know that I 
was ever more touched than when—long years afterwards, 
at one of the meetings of the “Virginia Division of the Army 
of Northern Virginia,” in introducing me as one of the 
speakers—he told this story, making use of the identical 
phraseology above recorded, as nearly as I can recall it. 

It may be well to say that a full regiment of engineer 
troops was ultimately organized, though the men were not 
drawn from the troops in the field, as at first provided— 
General Lee agreeing with his division generals that this 
should not be done. The corps rendered very efficient serv¬ 
ice. It was under the command of Col. T. M. R. Talcott, a 
member of General Lee’s staff, and a thoroughly educated, 
experienced, and able engineer, in whom the general felt as 
much confidence as in any officer of his rank in the army. 
Strange to say, I never served a day with the regiment, 
though holding a commission in it, and I had the honor of 
being, for a year or more, a bone of contention between the 
engineer troops and the artillery. Colonel Talcott would 
every now and then report my absence from duty and ask 
that I be ordered back to my post with his regiment, and 
this application being referred to Colonel Cabell, he would 
answer that it wojild be highly detrimental to the service to 
remove me, just at this time, from my position as acting 
adjutant of his battalion. As these papers had to pass 
through army headquarters, and in some instances even to 


i88 


FOUR YEARS UNDER MARSE ROBERT 


and from the Adjutant-General’s Office in Richmond, 
months would sometimes elapse before the grand rounds 
were completed. One feature of the case very aggravating 
to the officers of the engineer troops was that on one occa¬ 
sion, I presume through inadvertence, I was actually ad¬ 
vanced one grade in engineer troops for meritorious serv¬ 
ice in artillery. At last, however, I was again promoted, 
this time in artillery, which terminated the irritating, yet 
amusing, paper war. 

Some time after the close of the struggle, at a social 
gathering in Richmond, I observed a gentleman staring and 
pointing at me in a very peculiar manner, who, on being in¬ 
troduced, grasped my hand and burst into an uncontrollable 
fir of laughter. Upon recovering his composure he said 
that if our meeting had occurred a few years earlier his feel¬ 
ing, and possibly his action, might have been different; 
that he was one of the officers of the engineer regiment 
over whose heads I had unceremoniously and irregularly 
vaulted, they having served faithfully with the regiment 
and I having never even reported to it. He further said 
that my name had been repeatedly read out at dress parade 
of the regiment as “absent from duty,” when the officers 
would speculate as to how soon I would be lassooed and 
dragged in; but as the capture was constantly delayed and I 
ultimately made good my escape, my fellow-officers in en¬ 
gineer troops had changed their minds about me and con¬ 
cluded I was a strategist of a high order and deserving of 
high position and command. I may add that my personal 
relations with Colonel Talcott since the war have been of a 
close and intimate character, and that he is to-day one of 
my best friends. 

After the death of Jackson, Early was undoubtedly one 
of the strongest and ablest of Lee’s lieutenants. He was not 
perhaps the brilliant and dashing soldier that A. P. Hill was, 
nor a superb, magnetic leader like Gordon, and possibly he 
could not deliver quite as majestic a blow in actual battle 
as Longstreet; but his loyal devotion, his hardy courage, 
his native intellect, his mental training, his sagacity, his re¬ 
source, his self-reliant, self-directing strength, were all very 


FROM THE RAPPAHANNOCK TO THE POTOMAC 189 

great, and the commanding general reposed the utmost 
confidence in him. This he indicated by selecting him so 
frequently for independent command, and to fill the most 
critical, difficult, and I had almost said hopeless, positions, 
in the execution of his own great plans; as for example, 
when he left him at Fredericksburg with nine thousand men 
to neutralize Sedgwick with thirty thousand. Later, he sent 
him to the Valley, with a very inadequate force, to occupy 
and embarrass the enemy and to prevent overwhelming con¬ 
centration against the Confederate capital, where his opera¬ 
tions indicated the highest ability. 

Early was in some respects a bundle of inconsistencies and 
contradictions; of religion and irreligion, of reverence and 
profanity. I have heard my father speak of the General’s 
deep interest in religious work among the men of his divi¬ 
sion, and his readiness to do everything in his power to fa¬ 
cilitate it. I do not think I ever knew one human soul to 
look up to another with a feeling nearer akin to worship than 
that with which Early regarded Lee and Jackson, not alone 
as great soldiers, but as great Christians also; and yet he 
was the only man who was ever known to swear in General 
Lee’s presence. The general used to reprove him gently, yet 
at the same time to express his special affection for him, by 
calling him “My bad old man.” 

Old Jube struck the popular fancy in two respects only— 
his passing at a single bound from intense Unionism to in¬ 
tense Southernism, upon the issue of President Lincoln’s 
proclamation calling for troops, and his caustic, biting 
tongue. He was a sort of privileged character in the army 
and was saucy to everybody, but many of his brightest ut¬ 
terances will not bear publication because of the sting in 
them. One of this general character, which, however, had 
no real bitterness in it, is too good not to be told. 

The Hon. Jere Morton was in the Secession Convention 
with Early, as extreme a Secessionist as Early was Unionist, 
and very fond of talking about “our rights in the territories.” 
Morton was not in the army, and was probably above fight¬ 
ing age. His handsome estate, “Morton Hall,” was upon 
the outskirts of the great battle-fields of Central Virginia, 


I9O FOUR YEARS UNDER MARSE ROBERT 

and on one occasion Mr. Morton narrowly escaped capture 
there, and was obliged to mount a horse and fly. It so hap¬ 
pened that Early commanded the vanguard of the Confed¬ 
erate forces advancing to meet the enemy. Riding at the 
head of his column, and seeing Morton coming in hot haste, 
digging his spurs into his horse’s flanks, Early playfully 
threw a line of troops across the road to intercept his prog¬ 
ress, at the same time calling out to him, “Hold on, Mor¬ 
ton! Are you going for our rights in the Territories?” 

One evening, during General Jackson’s life-time, after a 
hard day’s march, General Early received, soon after com¬ 
ing to camp, substantially the following note: 

HEADQUARTERS 2(1 CORPS, A. NO. — VA. 

To Gen. Jubal A. Early, Commanding Division: 

General —Gen. Jackson’s compliments to Gen. Early, and he would 
like to be informed why he saw so many stragglers in rear of your divi¬ 
sion to-day. 

Respectfully, 

A. S. Pendleton, A. A. G. 2 d Corps. 

To which Old Jube promptly dictated and sent the follow¬ 
ing reply: 


HEADQUARTERS EARLY’S DIVISION, A. NO. — VA. 

To Col. A. S. Pendleton, A. A. G. 2d Corps: 

Colonel —General Early’s compliments to General Jackson, and he 
takes pleasure in informing him that he saw so many stragglers in rear 
of my division to-day, probably because he rode in rear of my division. 
Respectfully, 

Jubal A. Early, Commanding Division. 

There was not another officer in the Army of Northern 
Virginia who would have dared to send such an imperti¬ 
nent note to Jackson, nor another, save Stuart, whose im¬ 
pertinence in sending it would have been met with a laugh. 

After the war, its memories were Early’s religion; his 
mission, to vindicate the truth of history with regard to it. 
So long as the old hero was alive in his hill city of Virginia, 


FROM THE RAPPAHANNOCK TO THE POTOMAC 191 

no man ever took up his pen to write a line about the great 
conflict without the fear of Jubal Early before his eyes. 

As already stated, it is not within the scope of this book 
to discuss the causes or the objects of the war, or who was 
responsible for it; therefore, when I say that upon the side 
of the Confederates it was a war of defense I am enunciating 
a military and not a moral proposition. I mean simply that 
the Confederacy had not the requisite resources, that its 
leaders had no purpose or expectation of carrying on a war 
of aggression or conquest, and that our invasions of North¬ 
ern soil were intended merely as subsidiary parts of our gen¬ 
eral scheme of defense; that is, as diversions, as derange¬ 
ments of the general scheme of Federal invasion. 

General Lee was a soldier who thoroughly appreciated the 
walue of an offensive defensive. He never allowed his ad¬ 
versary quietly to mature and uninterruptedly to adhere to 
and carry out his own plan of campaign. Although con¬ 
ducting a defensive struggle, he was yet generally the attack¬ 
ing party. It was so in the Seven Days’ battles with Mc¬ 
Clellan, so in the Manassas campaign with Pope and the 
Maryland campaign that followed. It was so at Chancel- 
lorsville. And even in 1864, after the resources and fighting 
strength of the Confederacy had been so fearfully reduced, 
when Grant entered the Wilderness, Lee immediately pressed 
in after him and closed with him in a death grapple in the 
wery heart of the jungle. 

But perhaps the most perfect instance, and illustration of 
this characteristic feature of Lee’s strategy and tactics, and 
of the real significance of his two invasions of Northern ter¬ 
ritory, is what occurred after Chancellorsville. When 
Hooker retired across the Rappahannock and reoccupied his 
former position it would manifestly have been little short of 
madness for Lee to attack him there, especially deprived as 
he was of Jackson, his offensive right arm; yet he did not 
sit down, as a less courageous and resourceful leader would 
have done, gloating over his victory, conceding the initiative 
to Hooker, and awaiting developments. On the contrary, 
he proceeded to maneuver his adversary out of a position 
^from which he could not drive him, and to force him to 


192 


FOUR YEARS UNDER MARSE ROBERT 


abandon all idea of further aggressive campaign in Virginia 
for that year. 

Early in June, with his army reorganized into three corps, 
the First under Longstreet, embracing the divisions of Mc- 
Laws, Picket, and Hood; the Second under Ewell, embrac¬ 
ing Early, Rodes, and Johnson; and the Third under A. P. 
Hill, Anderson, Heth, and Pender,—all the corps command¬ 
ers being lieutenant-generals,—Lee drew away from the line 
of the Rappahannock, leaving Hill, however, for a short 
time, to watch Hooker, proceeded northward, by way of 
Culpeper and the Valley of Virginia,—the Second Corps in 
advance,—crossed the Shenandoah near Front Royal about 
June 12th, and, near Winchester, routed and captured a large 
part of the force which, under Milroy, was holding the 
Lower Valley. Hill followed Ewell, Longstreet’s corps hov¬ 
ering yet a while east of the mountains, to cover their opera¬ 
tions. 

It was about this time that President Lincoln and General 
Hooker had their famous serpentine telegraphic correspond¬ 
ence : 

“Where is the Rebel army?” 

“The advance is at the fords of the Potomac and the rear 
at Culpeper Court House.” 

“If the head of the animal is at the fords of the Potomac 
and the tail at Culpeper Court House, it must be very thin 
somewhere. Why don’t you strike it?” 

This battle of Winchester—there were many conflicts in 
and around that devoted old town—was one of the most per¬ 
fect pieces of work the Army of Northern Virginia ever 
did. Possibly the plan seemed so admirably clear and defi¬ 
nite and to move with the precision and decision of a prob¬ 
lem in mathematics, because, for the first time, as a mounted 
officer and in an unusually free and independent position, I 
personally watched every movement. I may add that the 
execution of the plan was committed largely to Old Jube, 
who certainly wrought it out and fought it out beautifully. 

The town of Winchester and the surrounding country 
were dominated by a strong closed earthwork, heavily armed 
and manned, which it would have been madness to assault, 


FROM THE RAPPAHANNOCK TO THE POTOMAC 193 

yet folly to neglect; and this work, on the only side which 
seemed to offer anything like a practicable approach, was 
protected and itself dominated by an outwork which it was 
absolutely necessary to carry before the inner and more pow¬ 
erful work could be reduced. Our scouts and engineers had 
done their work thoroughly and our column was conducted 
by a long detour, in every foot of which we were concealed 
from observation from either work by forests and the con¬ 
figuration of the ground; until at last we found ourselves in 
a position which had been attained with difficulty, but which 
perfectly commanded the outwork. The infantry now lay 
down to rest and recover breath, while the men of Hilary 
Jones’ battalion of artillery shoved their guns forward by 
hand up to and just back of a rock fence which ran along 
the crest of a ridge, under cover of which we had ap¬ 
proached, and then loaded them. They next removed a few 
of the stones in front of the muzzle of each gun, taking 
great care to remain concealed while doing this; and when 
everything was ready and everyone warned to do his part on 
the instant, the guns were discharged simultaneously upon 
the outwork and a rapid fire kept up upon it, while the in¬ 
fantry rose, and, with the wild rebel yell bursting from their 
lips, rushed forward in the charge. The surprise was com¬ 
plete, the distance not great, and the effect overwhelming. 
The outwork was abandoned almost without a struggle, its 
defenders retiring to the main fortification, and our infantry 
again lying down for rest and protection and to wait for us, 
while our guns galloped forward to the captured work, some 
occupying and firing from it, and others passing to the right 
and front to a level field hard by, from which we had the 
main work beautifully in range. 

But this work had us in range not less beautifully, indeed 
even more perfectly, and played havoc with us for a short 
time. My recollection is that I was acting as No. 6 at one 
of the limbers, and that I several times instinctively clapped 
down the lid of the ammunition chest as the shell seemed to 
burst immediately over it. We were at a loss to account 
for the preternaturally accurate aim of the guns and cutting 
of the fuses, until someone chanced to observe the practice 


13 


194 FOUR YEARS UNDER MARSE ROBERT 

target of the fort standing between the gun at which I was 
serving and the one next to it, when, of course, we shifted 
our position in a twinkling, dashing up still closer to the 
fort and finding, to our relief, that here the shells passed 
for the most part over our heads. 

On one of the two occasions in which our guns passed 
to the right and front of the recumbent infantry I observed 
our old friend Extra Billy Smith, on the front line of his 
brigade, standing erect, with his arms folded, his horse’s 
bridle rein over one shoulder and his blue cotton umbrella 
under the other, he and his horse the only two figures I saw 
standing in all the long line. The heroic old man was as 
cool as a cucumber and as smiling as a basket of chips, and 
he was actually bowing to the artillerymen—as with hair fly¬ 
ing and eyes flashing they passed on a run—with that same 
manly, hearty greeting which had, for more than a genera¬ 
tion, proved irresistible on the hustings in the Old Dominion. 
It was an unparalleled scene—unparalleled as an exhibition 
of courage, of personal force, and of the force of habit. I 
noted the expression on the face of each artilleryman as he 
recognized and responded to the old Governor’s salute, and 
felt—there’s one vote sure for Extra Billy as long as that 
gallant cannoneer lives. The old hero was at this time 
Governor-elect of the Commonwealth of Virginia. 

I cannot determine exactly when, but I received a very 
singular, and what threatened to be a very serious, injury 
during one of the moves our guns made after becoming 
engaged—I rather incline to think it must have been the 
first time we shifted position. At all events, I had, for some 
reason, given up my horse to someone and was fighting on 
foot in some position with one of the guns of the Charlottes¬ 
ville battery, when the orders were given, “Cease firing, lim¬ 
ber to the front, cannoneers mount!” I sprang upon a lim¬ 
ber chest upon which there were already the full complement 
of three men, all faced, of course, to the front. I faced to 
the rear, and bracing my back against the back of the middle 
man, attempted to hold my position with my feet resting 
on the “lunette plate”—a flat piece of iron fitted over the 
end of the trail of the gun, ending in a heavy ring, which 


FROM THE RAPPAHANNOCK TO THE POTOMAC I95 

was slipped over the “pintle hook” on the front axle, thus 
coupling the gun to the limber. We started at a run and 
were galloping under fire through a grove, by a wood road 
the track of which was full of limestone rocks projecting 
more or less above the ground. It was very difficult to keep 
my footing, as I had on a pair of stiff and slick-soled English 
shoes, the nails in which had worn perfectly smooth. 

Suddenly, at full run, we struck a large rock. The jar 
was terrific, and all the men were thrown off, but the others, 
having firm footing, described arcs which landed them on the 
turf at the side of the road. My feet, however, slipped, and 
I went down between the front and rear wheels and directly 
under the gun. The concussion was so tremendous that I 
supposed the limber chest had exploded, and distinctly re¬ 
member thinking to myself, “Then this is the way it feels to 
be blown up, is it? Well, I’ll try anyhow to save my arms 
and legs in case I shouldn’t be killed,” and with a violent 
effort I did manage to get them out of the track of the hind 
wheels, one of which, however, ran directly, or rather, diag¬ 
onally, across the small of my back on a flat limestone rock. 

My comrades picked themselves up, all right though 
slightly shocked. They thought me dead, but dragged me 
out of the track of the other guns, and left me lying on the 
grass under a tree. In a short time I came to myself, and, 
on taking a hurried inventory, found that though very 
badly jarred and bruised, yet no bones seemed to be broken, 
and concluded I would try to hobble on into the fight, which 
I did, lying down that night in a pouring rain and sleeping 
in a puddle—I presume about as good treatment as could 
have been prescribed. Next day I was carried into Win¬ 
chester, and after two or three days’ rest rode on after the 
army. The mark of the gun wheel remained on my back 
for a year or more, but I never experienced any serious pain 
or inconvenience from the injury. I attribute my escape, in 
part at least, to my unusually full muscular development at 
the time. 

Upon one of ouf shiftings of position in the battle I was 
on foot, abreast of one of the guns of the Charlottesville 
battery, and following close after John Hunter, sergeant of 


I96 FOUR YEARS UNDER MARSE ROBERT 

that piece, who was riding his little chestnut mare, “Madge,” 
when a thirty-pounder Parrott shell passed through her 
body, just back of the legs of the rider, exploding as it 
emerged, and spattering me profusely with the blood of the 
poor animal. Little Madge was not even jarred—any ex¬ 
perienced artillerist will understand this. She “never knew 
what hit her,” but sank gently down; while Hunter did not 
get even so much as a decent “shaking up,” not a very easy 
thing to administer to him, I frankly admit. When his feet 
touched the ground—they were not far from it even while 
Madge stood up on all fours—he simply disengaged them 
from the stirrups, turned around, glanced a moment at the 
bloody horror, and said: “Well, poor little Madge!” 

True, there was nothing more to be said, but all the same 
there was not another man of my acquaintance who would 
not have said more. 

The sergeant still lives. His yea is still yea and his nay, 
nay. He is a shining example of that admirable class of 
men and philosophers who never say anything superfluous 
or give strained or exaggerated expression to anything; yet 
his heart, as everyone knows, is not only in the right place, 
but the very rightest kind of a heart. He is one of my best 
friends and the husband of one of Billy’s “seven women.” 

During our next change of position, or it may have been 
during the same move, I witnessed a scene of horror and of 
agony so extreme that I would not describe it were it not 
that a knowledge of the widest swings of the pendulum of 
war, through the entire orbit of human experiences and 
emotions, is needed for adequate appreciation of the life of 
the soldier. 

The entire battalion, Hilary Jones’, was moving in col¬ 
umn, the Charlottesville battery, in which I was serving, 
following immediately after Garber’s. The farm road we 
were using led between two heavy old-fashioned gate posts. 
My recollection is that they were of stone and that there 
was no gate and no fence on either side of the posts, but 
the ground outside of and near the posts was somewhat 
rough and steep. One of Garber’s men, belonging to his 
rear gun, attempted to run abreast of the piece between the 


FROM THE RAPPAHANNOCK TO THE POTOMAC *97 

gate posts, presumably to avoid the rough ground outside. 
There was not room enough for him to pass, and the wheel 
crowding him against the post, the washer hook caught and 
tore open his abdomen, dragging the poor wretch along by 
his intestines, which were literally pulled from his body in 
a long, gory ribbon. 

At one of the last positions we took in the fight—it may 
have been the very last—there passed before me one of those 
scenes which give a flash-light revelation of the incom¬ 
parable greatness of war and the sublime self-abnegation of 
the true soldier. The fire of the Federal guns was verv 
deadly and demoralizing, and the captain of the battery next 
on our right, I think the Louisiana Guard Artillery, came 
up the hill between his battery and ours to steady his men. 
He was a fine horseman, finely mounted, and might well 
have served as a model for an equestrian statue as he rode out 
between the smoking muzzles, and, rising in his stirrups, 
cheered on his gunners. At that moment a shell tore away 
his bridle arm high up near the shoulder. Instantly he 
caught the reins with his right hand and swung his horse’s 
head sharply to the left, thus concealing his wounded side 
from his men, saying as he did so, “Keep it up, boys; I’ll 
be back in a moment!” As he started down the hill I saw 
him reel in the saddle, and even before he reached the limbers 
the noble fellow fell from his horse—dead. 

We were actively engaged, as I remember, until almost 
or quite dark; but as soon as the fire slackened I lay down, 
very sore from the severe bruising and crushing I had re¬ 
ceived, and of course in no condition for close or accurate 
observation, so I do not know when it was discovered that 
the garrison were abandoning the fort and preparing to re¬ 
treat, or what steps were taken to intercept them. They 
were intercepted, however; our operations resulting, as Gen¬ 
eral Lee reported, “in the expulsion of the enemy from the 
Valley, the capture of four thousand prisoners, with a cor¬ 
responding number*of small arms; twenty-eight pieces of su¬ 
perior artillery, including those taken by General Rodes and 
General Hayes; about three hundred wagons and as many 
horses, together with a quantity of ordnance, commissary, 
and quartermaster’s stores.” 


198 FOUR YEARS UNDER MARSE ROBERT 

The remnant of Milroy’s forces took refuge behind the 
fortifications of Harper’s Ferry; but as the reduction of that 
place had proved a very disturbing element in General Lee’s 
plans for the Maryland campaign of the preceding year, 
we gave it the go-by this time; Lieutenant-General Ewell 
with his three divisions, still in the van, crossing the Poto¬ 
mac in the latter part of June, rapidly traversing Maryland 
and advancing into Pennsylvania. 


CHAPTER XV 


IN PENNSYLVANIA 

Impressing Horses the Only Plundering Lee’s Army Did—A Remarka¬ 
ble Interview with An Old Lady in a Pennsylvania Town—She Ex¬ 
pects to Meet Stonewall Jackson in Heaven—Two Pennsylvania 
Boys Make Friends with the Rebels —“Extra Billy” Leads the Con¬ 
federate Column into York, His Brigade Band Playing “Yankee 
Doodle,” and Makes a Speech on the Public Green—“Old Jube” 
Breaks Up the Meeting—“Dick” Ewell and the Burghers of Car¬ 
lisle. 

I do not remember where I overtook Ewell’s corps, but 
think I entered Pennsylvania with them. General Lee had 
issued stringent orders against plundering and, certainly in 
the main, the men carefully observed these orders. I was 
constantly told by the inhabitants that they suffered less 
from our troops than from their own, and that if com¬ 
pelled to have either, they preferred having “the rebels” 
camped upon their lands. I saw no plundering whatever, 
except that once or twice I did see branches laden with 
fruit broken from cherry trees. 

Of course, it goes without saying, that the quartermasters, 
especially of artillery battalions, were, confessedly and of 
malice aforethought, horse thieves. It was, perhaps, adding 
insult to injury to offer to pay for the horses, as we did, in 
Confederate money; yet occasionally the owners took it, as 
“better than nothing”—how better it would be difficult to 
say. I felt sorry for the farmers, some of whom actually 
concealed their horses in their dwelling houses, or, rather, 
attempted to conceal them, for we became veritable sleuth- 
hounds in running down a horse, and were up to all the 
tricks and dodges devised to throw us off the track. 

After all, we gained very little by our horse stealing. 
The impressed animals were, for the most part, great. 


200 


FOUR YEARS UNDER MARSE ROBERT 


clumsy, flabby Percherons or Conestogas, which required 
more than twice the feed our compact, hard-muscled little 
Virginia horses required, and yet could not do half the 
work they did, nor stand half the hardship and exposure. It 
was pitiable, later, to see these great brutes suffer when 
compelled to dash off at full gallop with a gun, after pastur¬ 
ing on dry broom sedge and eating a quarter of a feed of 
weevil-eaten corn. They seemed to pine for the slow draft 
and full feed of their Pennsylvania homes. 

To me this campaign of invasion was of somewhat pe¬ 
culiar interest. Not only did I have a wide general acquaint¬ 
ance with the North, but two or three of my Yale classmates 
were from the very section of country we were traversing, 
and I therefore felt somewhat acquainted and connected with 
the people and the region. I was struck, too, with the re¬ 
semblance, both of the country and its inhabitants, to the 
Valley of Virginia. I noted the same two great stocks and 
races as making up the population,—the Dutch and the 
Scotch-Irish,—and to a great extent they had laid out their 
smaller towns and arranged their buildings, orchards, wells, 
-—everything, in short,—upon their farms, very much after 
the familiar Valley pattern. 

One bright day toward the end of June, our column was 
passing through the main street of such a town, when, being 
very thirsty, I rode up to the front fence of a house which, 
with its yard and surroundings, might have been set down in 
the main street of any one of a half-dozen Valley of Virginia 
towns without being in any respect out of place, and asked 
an elderly lady sitting in the porch if I might get a drink of 
water from the well. She courteously gave permission and 
I entered the yard, got a delicious drink of water, thanked 
her, and was in the act of leaving, when the old lady—who 
looked like the typical Valley gran’ma—very pleasantly ask¬ 
ed if I wouldn’t take a seat and rest a little. I thanked her, 
stepped up on the porch and sat down, and we soon got 
into a friendly and pleasant conversation, in the course of 
which* she asked me of myself, family, and surroundings, 
and seemed much interested to know that I had a sister in 
New Haven, Conn. She gladly consented to mail a letter for 


IN PENNSYLVANIA 


201 


me, and had a table, pen, ink, paper and stamps brought that 
I might write it. This letter was faithfully mailed by the 
old lady, and was the only communication my sister received 
from me for a year or more. 

As I finished writing a young married woman, evidently 
the daughter of my kindly hostess, came to the door, saying 
that her little son, naming him, was missing. In a few mo¬ 
ments they brought the child, a boy of five or six years, to 
the front porch, pale and trembling violently. They had 
found him between the mattress and feather bed in an up¬ 
stairs room, where he had hidden for fear of the rebels, of 
whose ferocious cruelty, blood-curdling tales had been told 
him. In a few moments he was in my lap, and we were 
the best of friends. 

Just as he was beginning to warm into his nest his 
mother announced that she had not seen anything of her 
elder son for some time, when, on the instant, a bright boy 
of ten or twelve summers burst into the gate, breathless 
with excitement, and gasped out, “Mother, mother! may I 
go to camp with the rebels ? They are the nicest men I ever 
saw in my life. They are going to camp right out here in 
the woods, and they are going to have a dance, too!” 

Harry Hayes’ Louisiana brigade was passing at the mo¬ 
ment, and in the open gate stood the lad’s companion, wait¬ 
ing for him—a bowing, smiling, grimacing, shoulder-shrug¬ 
ging Frenchman, who promised, in rather broken English, 
that he would take the best possible care of him. The 
mother hesitated, but a glance at her youngest, whose arm 
had now stolen around my neck, decided her, and off went 
her eldest with his Creole comrade; and if the brigade did 
have the dance, then the lad saw what was really worth see¬ 
ing, for if there was anything Hayes’ Creoles did and loved 
to do better than to fight, it was to dance; and their camp 
stag dances, sandwiched in between a big march and a big 
battle, were said to be the most “utterly utter” performances 
in the way of faun-like pranks, that grown and sane men 
ever indulged in. * 

Before I left the old lady asked me if I had ever seen 
Stonewall Jackson, and upon my responding that I had, she 


202 


FOUR YEARS UNDER MARSE ROBERT 


said quietly, but with the deepest feeling, that she expected 
to see him soon, for if anyone had ever left this earth who 
had gone straight to Heaven it was he. 

This was almost too much, and I said to her, “Madam, 
who on earth are you and where did you come from ?” She 
said she was born in the Valley of Virginia and had been 
brought to this country when a girl. I could not forbear 
kissing her hand as I departed, and told her I felt sure she 
would get There, and I hoped we would meet in that blessed 
country where there would be no more wars nor separations 
between God’s dear children. 

By this time the reader has doubtless learned that things 
were not likely to be dull when our old friend “Extra Billy” 
was about; that in fact there was apt to be “music in the 
air” whenever he was in charge. On the occasion below de¬ 
scribed, the old Governor seemed to be rather specially con¬ 
cerned about the musical part of the performance. 

We were about entering the beautiful Pennsylvania town 
of York, General Smith’s brigade in the lead. Under these 
conditions, feeling sure there was likely to be a breeze stir¬ 
ring about the head of the column, I rode forward so as to 
be near the General and not to miss the fun. As we approach¬ 
ed the population seemed to be very generally in the streets, 
and I saw at a glance that the old Governor had blood in his 
eye. Turning to Fred, his aide,—who was also his son, and 
about the strongest marked case of second edition I ever 
saw,—he told him to “Go back and look up those tooting 
fellows,” as he called the brigade band, “and tell them first 
to be sure their drums and horns are all right, and then to 
come up here to the front and march into town tooting 
‘Yankee Doodle’ in their very best style.” 

Fred was off in a jiffy, and soon here came the band, their 
instruments looking bright and smart and glistening in the 
June sunlight—playing, however, not “Yankee Doodle,” but 
“Dixie,” the musicians appearing to think it important to be 
entirely impartial in rendering these national airs, and there¬ 
fore giving us “Dixie” by way of prelude to “Yankee 
Doodle.” 

When they got to the head of the column, and struck up 
“Yankee Doodle,” and the Governor, riding alone and bare- 


IN PENNSYLVANIA 


203 


headed in front of his staff, began bowing and saluting 
first one side and then the other, and especially every 
pretty girl he saw, with that manly, hearty smile which no 
man or woman ever doubted or resisted—the Yorkers seem¬ 
ed at first astounded, then pleased, and finally, by the time we 
reached the public square, they had reached the point of 
ebullition, and broke into enthusiastic cheers as they crowded 
about the head of the column, actually embarrassing its 
progress, till the old Governor,—the “Governor-General,” 
we might call him,—nothing loth, acceded to the half sug¬ 
gestion and called a halt, his brigade stacking arms, and 
constituting, if not formally organizing, themselves and the 
people of York into a political meeting. 

It was a rare scene—the vanguard of an invading army 
and the invaded and hostile population hobnobbing on the 
public green in an enthusiastic public gathering. The gen¬ 
eral did not dismount, but from the saddle he made a 
rattling, humorous speech, which both the Pennsylvanians 
and his own brigade applauded to the echo. He said sub¬ 
stantially : 

“My friends, how do you like this way of coming back 
into the Union ? I hope you like it; I have been in favor of it 
for a good while. But don't misunderstand us. We are 
not here with any hostile intent—unless the conduct of your 
side shall render hostilities unavoidable. You can see for 
yourselves we are not conducting ourselves like enemies to¬ 
day. We are not burning your houses or butchering your 
children. On the contrary, we are behaving ourselves like 
Christian gentlemen, as we are. 

“You see, it was getting a little warm down our way. We 
needed a summer outing and thought we would take it at the 
North, instead of patronizing the Virginia springs, as we 
generally do. We are sorry, and apologize that we are not 
in better guise for a visit of courtesy, but we regret to say 
our trunks haven’t gotten up yet; we were in such a hurry to 
see you that we could not wait for them. You must really 
excuse us. 

“What we all need, on both sides, is to mingle more with 
each other, so that we shall learn to know and appreciate 


204 FOUR YEARS UNDER MARSE ROBERT 

each other. Now here’s my brigade—I wish you knew them 
as I do. They are such a hospitable, whole-hearted, fascinat¬ 
ing lot of gentlemen. Why, just think of it—of course this 
part of Pennsylvania is ours to-day; we’ve got it, we hold 
it, we can destroy it, or do what we please with it. Yet we 
sincerely and heartily invite you to stay. You are quite 
welcome to remain here and to make yourselves entirely at 
home—so long as you behave yourselves pleasantly and 
agreeably as you are doing now. Are we not a fine set of 
fellows? You must admit that we are.” 

At this point my attention was called to a volley of very 
heated profanity poured forth in a piping, querulous treble, 
coming up from the rear, and being mounted and located 
where I commanded a view of the road, I saw that the sec¬ 
ond brigade in column, which had been some distance in 
the rear, had caught up, and was now held up by our public 
meeting, which filled and obstructed the entire street, and 
that Old Jube, who had ridden forward to ascertain the 
cause of the dead-lock, was fairly blistering the air about 
him and making furious but for the time futile efforts to get 
at Extra Billy, who in plain sight, and not far off, yet bliss¬ 
fully unconscious of the presence of the major-general and 
of his agreeable observations and comments, was still hold¬ 
ing forth with great fluency and acceptability. 

The jam was solid and impervious. As D. H. Hill’s re¬ 
port phrased it, “Not a dog, no, not even a sneaking exempt, 
could have made his way through”—and at first and for 
some time, Old Jube couldn’t do it, and no one would help 
him. But at last officers and men were compelled to recog¬ 
nize the division commander, and he made his way so far 
that, by leaning forward, a long stretch, and a frantic grab, 
he managed to catch General Smith by the back of his coat 
collar. Even Jube did not dare curse the old general in an 
offensive way, but he did jerk him back and around pretty 
vigorously and half screamed: 

“General Smith, what the devil are you about! stopping 
the head of this column in this cursed town?” 


IN PENNSYLVANIA 


205 


With unruffled composure the old fellow replied: 

“Having a little fun, General, which is good for all of us, 
and at the same time teaching these people something that 
will be good for them and won’t do us any harm.” 

Suffice it to say the matter was amicably arranged and 
the brigade and its unique commander moved on, leaving 
the honest burghers of York wondering what manner of 
men we were. I should add that General Early had the 
greatest regard and admiration for General Smith, which 
indeed he could not well avoid, in view of his intense 
patriotic devotion and his other sterling and heroic quali¬ 
ties. I have seldom heard him speak of any other officer or 
soldier in the service, save of course Lee and Jackson, in 
such exalted terms as of the old “Governor-General.” 

May I be pardoned for relating one more incident of our 
Pennsylvania trip, and that not strictly a reminiscence; that 
is, I was not present and did not myself hear the conversation 
I propose to relate. During the latter part of the war I en¬ 
joyed the privilege and pleasure of intimate personal ac¬ 
quaintance with Lieutenant-General Ewell, but at this time 
I knew him only as every soldier in the army knew him. 
Some of his salient peculiarities, as well as the peculiar 
character of some of our intercourse with the people of 
Pennsylvania, are well brought out in the following story, 
which I have every reason to regard as authentic. 

The General was, I think, at Carlisle, though I am not 
quite certain of the place, when the burghers of the town, 
or rather a deputed committee of solid citizens, called at 
headquarters to interview him with reference to several mat¬ 
ters. Amongst other things they said there was a certain 
mill, the product of which was used largely by the poorer 
people of the place, who were suffering and likely to suffer 
more, because of the mill’s not running, and they asked 
whether he had any objection to its being run. 

“Why, no,” said Old Dick; “certainly not. It isn’t my 
mill; what have I got to do with it anyhow? But stop, 
maybe this is what you want—if any of my people should 
interfere with your use of your mill, you come and tell me. 
Will that do, and is that all ?” 


206 


FOUR YEARS UNDER MARSE ROBERT 


They thanked him profusely and the spokesman said: 

“No, General, that isn’t quite all. We are Lutherans and 
we’ve got a church.” 

“Glad to hear it.” 

“Well, can we open it next Sunday?” 

“What ? What do you mean ? It isn’t my church. Cer¬ 
tainly, open it, if you want to. I’ll attend it myself if I am 
here.” 

“O, thank you, General! we hoped you wouldn’t object.” 

“Object? What do you mean, anyway? What’s the 
matter ? What do you want ? Out with it. I’ll do anything 
I can for you, but I’ve got nothing to do with your mills or 
your churches. I’m not going to interfere with them, but 
I haven’t time to stay here all the evening talking nonsense 
like this.” 

“But, General, we hope you won’t be mad with us. We 
are Lutherans and we have a church service. Can we use 
it next Sunday?” 

“Look here, I’m tired of this thing! What have I got to 
do with your mill, your church, or your service? Speak 
quick and speak plain, or leave at once!” 

“Well, then, General, we hope you won’t get mad. In our 
service we pray—we pray for—we pray for the President 
of the United States. May we use our service? Can we 
pray for him?” 

“Who do you mean, Lincoln? Certainly, pray for him; 
pray as much as ever you can—I don’t know anybody that 
stands more in need of prayer!” 


CHAPTER XVI 


GETTYSBURG 

Lee Without His Cavalry—The Battle, When and Where Fought, An 
Accident—The Army of Northern Virginia in Splendid Condition— 
Gordon on Black Auster—A Fistic Encounter at the Crisis of the 
Great Battle—“Limber to the Rear”—A Great Disappointment—A 
Desperate Ride—Dead Enemies More to Be Dreaded Than Living 
Ones—The Dutch Woman’s Ankles. 


Gettysburg, generally regarded as the pivotal battle of our 
great civil war, has been more studied and discussed than 
any other, and much unpleasant feeling between prominent 
actors in the drama on the Confederate side and their ad¬ 
herents and partisans has been brought out in the discus¬ 
sion. The writer has his own opinions upon most or all of 
the disputed points; but, while resting upon grounds satis¬ 
factory to himself, these opinions are not based upon such a 
thorough study of the battle as would alone justify the effort 
to influence the views of others, if indeed such an effort 
could be regarded as properly within the scope of such a 
work as this. 

As usual with great battles, it was not the plan or purpose 
of either side to fight this one when and where it was fought. 
Meade, who had succeeded Hooker, had selected a position 
on Pipe Clay Creek, where he would have concentrated his 
army—but for the capture of President Davis’ message to 
General Lee, revealing the fact that he feared to uncover 
Richmond by detaching Beauregard to threaten Washington 
as Lee had advised—and Lee had ordered the concentration 
of his army at Cashtown; but there was this great difference 
between the circumstances of the two armies. The battle 
was brought on by the advance of the Federal cavalry, in the 
discharge of its legitimate work of developing our forces and 


208 


FOUR YEARS UNDER MARSE ROBERT 


positions and gathering information for the Federal com¬ 
mander. The Confederate leader, on the other hand, was, 
in great measure, without his cavalry; no information what¬ 
ever had been received by him, since crossing the Potomac, 
of or from General Stuart or his troopers. His army was, 
therefore, in the condition of a blind man surrounded by 
enemies endowed with vision and making full use of it. 

It is fair to Stuart to say that it had been left to his dis¬ 
cretion when and where he should cross the river—whether 
east of the mountains, or in the track of the infantry at the 
mouth of the Valley; but Colonel Taylor says: “He was 
expected to maintain communication with the main column, 
and especially directed to keep the commanding general in¬ 
formed of the movements of the Federal army.” Did his 
one besetting weakness betray him again? Was he too much 
absorbed and infatuated with the fun of seeing how near his 
eastern sweep could approach the fortifications of Washing¬ 
ton, or how far his bursting shell could terrorize the Federal 
capital ? 

On the eve of Gettysburg the Army of Northern Virginia, 
with the exception of the cavalry, was well in hand and in 
the finest possible plight. Of course its equipment was not 
perfect, though better, I think, than I remember to have seen 
it at any other time, while the physical condition and the 
spirit of the men could not have been finer. The way in 
which the army took the death of Jackson was a striking 
test of its high mettle. I do not recall having talked with a 
man who seemed to be depressed by it, while the common sol¬ 
diers spoke of it in wondrous fashion. They seemed to have 
imbibed, to a great extent, the spirit of Lee’s order announc¬ 
ing Jackson’s death. They said they felt that his spirit was 
with us and would be throughout the campaign. It seemed 
to be their idea that God would let his warrior soul leave for 
a time the tamer bliss of Heaven that it might revel once 
more in the fierce joy of battle. 

The Third Corps, A. P. Hill’s, the last to leave the line of 
the Rappahannock, was the first to become engaged in the 
great fight. 

On the 29th of June, Hill, who was at Fayetteville, be¬ 
tween Chambersburg and Gettysburg, under general orders 


GETTYSBURG 


209 


to co-operate with Ewell in menacing the communication of 
Harrisburg with Philadelphia, sent Heth’s division to Cash- 
town, following it on the 30th with Pender’s, and on the 1st 
of July with Anderson’s division. On the 1st, Heth sent for¬ 
ward Pettygrew’s brigade toward Gettysburg, where it en¬ 
countered a considerable Federal force, how considerable 
Pettygrew could not determine; but it consisted in part at 
least of cavalry, and this information was at once sent, 
through Heth and Hill, to the commanding general, who 
directed Heth to ascertain if possible what force was at 
Gettysburg, and if he found infantry to report at once, but 
not to force an engagement. He did find infantry, a large 
body of it, and finding himself unable to draw away from 
it, soon became hotly engaged. The sound of artillery hur¬ 
ried Hill to the front and he put in Pender’s division in 
support of Heth. Anderson did not get up in time to take 
part in this fight. 

But the Second Corps, Ewell’s, to which I was attached, 
or rather two divisions of it, Early’s and Rodes’, which 
were already en route for Cashtown, hearing at Middle- 
town that Hill was concentrating at Gettysburg, turned 
toward that point, and Rodes, who was in the advance, 
gathering from the cannonading that a sharp engagement 
was in progress, hurried forward and made his dispositions 
for battle. But before he could form his lines so as to 
most effectively aid Hill’s two divisions, he found fresh 
Federal troops deploying in his own front and soon became 
engaged with these. Meanwhile, our division (Early’s) was 
subjected to one of the most straining of the experiences of 
the soldier—approaching a field of battle, invisible as yet, 
and played upon by the cadence and the swell of the fire. I 
well recall the scene as, about three o’clock in the afternoon, 
our column left the road and deployed out into line upon 
an elevated plateau, from which we had a full view of the 
field and of the drawn battle trembling in the balance in our 
front. , 

Every experienced soldier, particularly if he is a man of 
sensitive nature and pictorial memory, will appreciate my 
saying that two strongly contrasted figures are almost 


14 


210 


FOUR YEARS UNDER MARSE ROBERT 


equally prominent in my recollections of this scene. One is 
Old Jube, as with consuming earnestness he connected his 
right with Rodes’ left and gave the order to advance—his 
glossy black ostrich feather, in beautiful condition, seeming 
to glisten and gleam and tremble upon the wide brim of his 
gray-brown felt hat, like a thing of life; and the other, a 
dwarfish, dumpy little fellow, of the division pioneer corps, 
who at this moment came running up to his command, just 
as I was leaving it to take my place with the artillery, carry¬ 
ing under each arm a great, round, Dutch loaf of bread 
about the size of a cart wheel, giving him, upon a side view, 
such as I had of him, the appearance of rolling in on wheels. 

Early’s attack was one of great impetuosity, especially that 
of Gordon’s brigade, and while, even after his two brigades 
—Hayes’ and Gordon’s—entered the fight, the preponderance 
in numbers was still with the Federal side, yet they broke 
almost immediately in front of Early; whereupon our entire 
line—the two divisions of our corps and the two of Hill’s— 
made a simultaneous advance, and the whole Federal force, 
consisting of the First and Eleventh Corps, of three divisions 
each, and Buford’s cavalry, gave way in utter rout. The 
Charlottesville battery followed immediately in rear of Gor¬ 
don, and I was in charge of one of their pieces. We drove 
the enemy pell-mell over rolling wheat fields, through a 
grove, across a creek, up a little slope and into the town it¬ 
self. The pursuit was so close and hot that, though my gun 
came into battery several times, yet I could not get in a shot. 

Gordon was the most glorious and inspiring thing I ever 
looked upon. He was riding a beautiful coal-black stallion, 
captured at Winchester, that had belonged to one of the Fed¬ 
eral generals in Milroy’s army—a majestic animal, * whose 
“neck was clothed with thunder.” From his grand joy in 

*In Scribner's for June, 1903, General Gordon mentions this horse, 
describing him very much as I have done. He adds that he only rode 
him in one battle; that he behaved well at first under artillery fire, but 
later, encountering a fierce fire of musketry, he turned tail and bolted 
to the rear a hundred yards or more. 

I am glad I did not witness this disgraceful fall. Nothing could have 
been more superb than his bearing so long as he was under my eye. 



GETTYSBURG 


211 


battle, he must have been a direct descendant of Job’s horse, 
or Bucephalus, or Black Auster. I never saw a horse’s neck 
so arched, his eye so fierce, his nostril so dilated. He fol¬ 
lowed in a trot, close upon the heels of the battle line, his 
head right in among the slanting barrels and bayonets, the 
reins loose upon his neck, his rider standing in his stirrups, 
bareheaded, hat in hand, arms extended, and, in a voice 
like a trumpet, exhorting his men. It was superb; abso¬ 
lutely thrilling. I recall feeling that I would not give so 
much as a dime to insure the independence of the Con¬ 
federacy. 

The loss of the enemy was terrific. General Butterfield, 
chief of staff of the Federal army, testifying before the 
Committee on the Conduct of the War, puts the total Fed¬ 
eral force engaged in this fight at twenty-two to twenty- 
four thousand, and Swinton estimates their loss at “near ten 
thousand men.” Our loss, at least in Gordon’s brigade, was 
slight. I distinctly remember, in a momentary pause, calling 
out to Gordon, “General, where are your dead men?” and 
his reply: “I haven’t got any, sir; the Almighty has cov¬ 
ered my men with His shield and buckler!” Later in the 
war General Ewell said to me that he believed Gordon’s 
brigade that evening put hors de combat a greater number 
of the enemy in proportion to its own numbers than any 
other command on either side ever did, from the beginning 
to the end of the war; but he added that he would not be 
misunderstood as awarding this gallant brigade credit in 
like proportion, because it simply turned the scale of a 
theretofore evenly-balanced battle. 

I cannot forbear telling how, a few months later, this 
heroic scene was brought again vividly to my mind. 

Happening to be in Richmond for a few hours, I went 
-down to a train to aid in getting off some wounded men, 
and was helping to ease down from a box-car a Georgia sol¬ 
dier very badly shot. With some difficulty we managed to 
get him on a litter and then to lower him to the platform, 
without a jar; when, as he was resting a moment, I asked the 
universal soldier question, “What command do you belong 


212 


FOUR YEARS UNDER MARSE ROBERT 


to ?” His pained and pallid face lit up with a glow of pride 
as he answered: “I belong to Gordon’s old brigade, Cap’n. 
Did you ever see the Gin’ral in battle ? He’s most the pret¬ 
tiest thing you ever did see on a field of fight. It’ud put 
fight into a whipped chicken just to look at him.” 

My gun had come again into battery in the outskirts of 
the town. No enemy was in sight in our front; but in an¬ 
ticipation of a sudden rush I had the piece loaded and several 
rounds of canister taken from the ammunition chest and put 
down hard by the gaping muzzle, ready to sweep the street 
in case they should turn upon us. At this moment little 
George Greer, a chubby boy of sixteen, rode on by further 
into the town. George was General Early’s clerk and a favor¬ 
ite with Old Jube, just because more fond of riding courier 
for him and of driving spurs into the flanks of a horse than 
of driving pen across paper. I shouted a caution to him as 
he passed, but on he went, disappearing in the smoke and 
dust ahead. In a few moments a cloud of blue coats ap¬ 
peared in the street in front of us, coming on, too, at a run. 
I was about to order the detachment to open fire, when be¬ 
yond and back of the men in blue I noticed little Greer, lean¬ 
ing forward over the neck of his horse, towering above the 
Federals, who were on foot; and with violent gesticulations 
and in tones not the gentlest, ordering the “blue devils” to 
“double quick to the rear of that piece,” which they did in 
the shortest time imaginable. There must have been over 
fifty of them. 

I am aware this statement sounds incredible, but the men 
had thrown away their arms and were cowering in abject 
terror in the streets and alleys. Upon no other occasion did 
I see any large body of troops, on either side, so completely 
routed and demoralized as were the two Federal corps who 
were beaten at Gettysburg the evening of July ist. 

And this one reminds me of other incidents of those tre¬ 
mendous moments when our fate hung in the balance. 

There was an Irishman named Burgoyne in the Ninth 
Louisiana,—Harry Hayes’ brigade,—a typical son of the 
Emerald Isle, over six feet high in his stockings (when he 
had any), broad-shouldered and muscular, slightly bow-leg- 


GETTYSBURG 


213 


ged, and springy as a cat; as full of fire and fight and fun as 
he could hold; indeed, often a little fuller than he could hold, 
and never having been known to get his fill of noise and 
scrimmage. Whenever the Ninth supported Hilary Jones, 
if the musketry fire slackened while the artillery was in ac¬ 
tion, Burgoyne would slip over to the nearest gun and take 
someone’s place at the piece. 

Seeing us unlimber in the street, as above related, he 
had come over now for this purpose, seized the sponge-staff 
and rammed home the charge, and was giving vent to his 
enthusiasm in screams and bounds that would have done 
credit to a catamount. 

Standing on the other side of the gun, with his arms 
folded, was a Federal Irishman, a prisoner just captured— 
a man even taller than Burgoyne and somewhat heavier in 
frame, altogether a magnificent fellow. Catching Bur- 
goyne’s brogue, he broke out— 

“Hey, ye spalpane! say, what are yez doing in the Ribil 
army ?” 

Quick as a flash, Burgoyne retorted: 

“Be-dad, ain’t an Irishman a freeman? Haven’t I as 
good right to fight for the Ribs as ye have to fight for the 
-Yanks?” 

“O, yes!” sang out the Federal Irishman, “I know ye, 
now you’ve turned your ougly mug to me. I had the plizure 
of kicking yez out from behind Marye’s wall, that time 
Sedgwick lammed yer brigade out o’ there!” 

“Yer a-liar,” shouted our Pat, “and I’ll jist knock 

yer teeth down yer ougly throat for that same lie,” and suit¬ 
ing the action to the word, he vaulted lightly over the gun, 
and before we had time to realize the extreme absurdity of 
the thing, the two had squared off against each other in the 
most approved style and the first blow had passed, for the 
Federal Irishman was as good grit as ours. 

Just as the two giants were about to rush to close quar¬ 
ters, but before any blood had been drawn in the round, I 
noticed that the right fist of the Federal gladiator was gory, 
and the next movement revealed the stumps of two shat¬ 
tered fingers, which he was about to drive full into Bur¬ 
goyne’s face. 




214 


FOUR YEARS UNDER MARSE ROBERT 


“Hold!” I cried; “your man’s wounded!” On the in¬ 
stant Burgoyne’s fists fell. 

“You’re a trump, Pat; give me your well hand,” said he. 
“We’ll fight this out some other time. I didn’t see ye were 
hurt.” 

Just as this intensest climax of the great battle was hap¬ 
pily avoided, a member of General Early’s staff—I thought 
it was Major Daniel, but he says not—galloped by, and 
shouted, “Lieutenant, limber to the rear!” 

“To the front , you mean, Major!” 

“No,” came the answer, to the rear!” 

“All right, boys,” said I, “I reckon the town’s barricaded, 
and we’ll just pass round it to the front.” 

But, no. Back, hack, we went, for perhaps a mile or more, 
and took position on a hill from which, next morning, we 
gazed upon the earthworks which had sprung up in the 
night on Cemetery Ridge, and the tide, which taken at the 
flood might have led on to overwhelming victory and even 
to independence, had ebbed away forever. So it looked to 
me then, and nothing I have read or heard since has altered 
the impressions of that moment. 

It is my nature to be reverential toward rightful author¬ 
ity and not to question the wisdom of its decisions; but on 
this occasion I chafed and rebelled until it almost made me 
ill. I was well nigh frenzied by what appeared to me to be 
the folly, the absolute fatuity of delay. One point must be 
cleared up. It has been suggested that General Lee himself 
was responsible; that, coming late upon the field, he for¬ 
bade the advance which his lieutenant would have made. 
Mr. Swinton goes so far as to say unqualifiedly that “Ewell 
was even advancing a line against Culp’s Hill when Lee 
reached the field and stayed the movement.” Nothing 
could be less like Lee and nothing further from the truth. 
Colonel Taylor makes this full and explicit statement: 

General Lee witnessed the flight of the Federals through Gettysburg 
and up the hills beyond. He then directed me to go to General Ewell 
and say to him that, from the position which he occupied, he could see 
the enemy retreating over those hills, without organization and in great 
confusion; that it was only necessary to press “those people" in order to 


GETTYSBURG 


215 


secure possession of the heights, and that, if possible, he wished him to 
do this. In obedience to these instructions I proceeded immediately to 
General Ewell and delivered the order of General Lee; and after receiv¬ 
ing from him some message for the commanding general in regard to 
the prisoners captured, returned to the latter and reported that his order 
had been delivered. 

At this time I admired General Ewell as a soldier; later 
I loved him as a man, and he treated me with more in¬ 
formal and affectionate kindness than any other of our 
leading generals ever did. But the truth must be told, and 
Ewell was the last man on earth to object to this. Colonel 
Taylor speaks of the discretion General Lee always ac¬ 
corded to his lieutenants. In the exercise of this discre¬ 
tion, Ewell probably decided it best not to press his ad¬ 
vantage on the evening of July 1st. Why, we do not know; 
at least I do not recall any statement from him on the sub¬ 
ject, and his lips are now sealed. I ask no judgment against 
him, but only that General Lee’s skirts should be cleared of 
responsibility for the failure to go right on that evening and 
occupy the heights. 

It is also undeniably true, that Lee desired and purposed 
to renew the attack, in full force, at daylight next morning, 
the morning of July 2d, but was again thwarted by lack of 
prompt and vigorous co-operation among his generals. This 
book being in the main a record of personal reminiscence, I 
do not care to go into the details of these various and desul¬ 
tory movements and failures to move, until some time, I 
think early in the afternoon of the second, when I was 
brought again in personal touch with the matter and ulti¬ 
mately into one of the most tremendous experiences of my 
life. 

As I remember, about the time mentioned, two of Early’s 
brigades, Gordon’s being one, were sent off to watch the 
York road and a suspicious-looking body of troops which 
had appeared and disappeared in that direction, say two 
miles to the left, and which threatened the left flank and 
rear of Edward Johnson’s division, which was our extreme 
left, and under orders to take part in a general advance 
against the enemy. Gordon was in command of this little 


216 


FOUR YEARS UNDER MARSE ROBERT 


army of observation, and as I was mounted and relished the 
idea of a scout and the prospect of adventure, I joined the 
expedition. 

When we reached our objective we readily satisfied our¬ 
selves that no danger boded from this direction, and that 
the troops we had regarded with suspicion were not hostile. 
We did not come into absolute contact with them,—we 
could not wait for that,—but my recollection is that they 
proved to be the advance of Stuart’s cavalry, which had 
just come up, and were really doing just what we had come 
to do, that is, guarding our left flank and rear. 

After making this discovery, the point was to get word 
to Johnson at the earliest possible moment, that he could 
press on, feeling no uneasiness about his flanks. Not a mem¬ 
ber of Gordon’s staff was with him—all were off on various 
errands. Captain Mitchell came up at the moment, but both 
he and his horse were exhausted, utterly unfit for such a ride 
as this. The General called for volunteers, mounted officers, 
to take the message—two, I think; one to go around a longer 
and safer way, but one to cut right across, or rather, as his 
course would be after the first quarter of a mile, directly in 
the teeth of the artillery fire, which was sweeping the ap¬ 
proaches to the Federal position from our left. 

I offered to take this latter ride and do my best to get 
word to General Johnson promptly. The General thanked 
me, and off I dashed, braced, as I thought, for anything, 
yet little dreaming what the ride would really be. 

For the first few hundred yards, as above suggested, the 
configuration of the ground was such that the fire was en¬ 
tirely cut off—not so much as even one stray shell whistled 
above my head. But in a few moments, as I rose a hill and 
my course veered to the left, I struck a well-defined serial 
current, a meteoric stream, of projectiles and explosions, 
and I felt my little horse shudder and squat under me, and 
then he made one frantic effort to turn and fly. I pulled him 
fiercely back against the iron torrent until he breasted it 
squarely and then, seeming to realize the requirements of the 
position, he elongated and flattened himself as much as 
possible, while I lay as close to him as I could, and we 
fairly devoured the way. 


GETTYSBURG 


217 


One of the horrors of the thing, during a large part of the 
ride, was that I could see almost every shell that passed, as 
they were coming straight toward me, and their propulsive 
force was pretty well exhausted. As I approached the 
points at which the fire was directed, while I could not see 
so large a proportion of the shells, and this strain was of 
course diminished, yet the number of projectiles and explo¬ 
sions increased—until at last there was absolutely no separa¬ 
tion between the reports, but the air was rent by one continu¬ 
ous shriek of shell and roar of explosion, and torn with 
countless myriads of hurtling fragments. 

When a man is undergoing an experience like this he does 
not think—his entire conscious being is concentrated upon 
the one point of endurance. But unconsciously, inadvert¬ 
ently, he may receive powerful impressions and bear away 
with him vivid and unfading mental photographs. 

I have borne with me ever since, in my recollections of this 
ride, three pictures. The first is a silhouette of my little 
horse and me as we sped on our perilous way. I put him 
first because he did it, I only endured. After his first shy he 
never shrank or swerved again, but held to his course 
straight and swift as a greyhound; nay, as an arrow flies. 
He seemed to be possessed, whether intelligently or instinc¬ 
tively, of the double purpose of making himself small and 
getting there. His figure was that of a running hare—low 
to the ground, with her ears laid flat and every limb stretch¬ 
ed; while I was nothing but the smallest possible projection 
above his back and along his flanks. 

I am not satisfied whether this is purely a mental and in¬ 
ferential picture, or whether, as I incline to think, my eye, 
in an involuntary sidelong glance, caught our shadow as we 
flew. But of this I am satisfied—that, in all the years since, 
the battle of Gettysburg has never obtruded itself upon my 
mental vision that this strange figure, of horse and man blent 
together into one by the terrible tension, has not been the 
frontispiece. 

The next picture is of Latimer's Battalion, which, with 
splendid pluck but little judgment, had engaged in a most* 
unequal artillery duel with the Federal batteries massed upon 
Cemetery Ridge and Culp's Hill. Never, before or after, 


2l8 


FOUR YEARS UNDER MARSE ROBERT 


did I see fifteen or twenty guns in such a condition of wreck 
and destruction as this battalion was. It had been hurled 
backward, as it were, by the very weight and impact of metal, 
from the position it had occupied on the crest of a little 
ridge, into a saucer-shaped depression behind it; and such a 
scene as it presented—guns dismounted and disabled, car¬ 
riages splintered and crushed, ammunition chests exploded, 
limbers upset, wounded horses plunging and kicking, dash¬ 
ing out the brains of men tangled in the harness; while can¬ 
noneers w'ith pistols were crawling around through the 
wreck shooting the struggling horses to save the lives of the 
wounded men. 

I said the little horse did not again swerve from his 
course. He was compelled to do so at this point, as it was 
impracticable to ride through the battalion, which lay di¬ 
rectly in our track; but we had a full view of it as we fol¬ 
lowed the higher ground from which it had been driven. 

The third and last picture connected with my desperate 
ride is of the finish and of the doughty division commander 
in whose behalf I had taken it. He was sometimes called 
“Alleghany Johnson” and “Fence-Rail Johnson,” because 
of his having been wounded at the battle of Alleghany, and, 
in consequence, walking with a very perceptible limp and 
aiding the process with a staff about as long as a rail and 
almost as thick as the club of Giant Despair. He was a 
heavy, thick-set man, and when I saw him was on foot and 
hobbling along with the help of this gigantic walking-cane. 
It was toward the gloaming and I did not see him very dis¬ 
tinctly, but remember that when I gasped out the message I 
bore from Gordon, he simply growled back, “Very well, 
sir”—and, my responsibility discharged, I dropped from the 
saddle to the ground, the last thing I remember being my 
little horse standing over me, his sides heaving and panting 
and his head drooping and sinking until his muzzle almost 
touched my body. How long I lay and he stood there, or 
where we went after we recovered breath and motion, I have 
not the faintest recollection. 

Johnson’s attack was made not long before dark, but it 
was not vigorously supported, except by two of Early’s 
brigades, and it failed to accomplish any important result. 


GETTYSBURG 


219 


I was not in any way personally connected with the main 
operations of the next day, July 3d, the last day of the great 
battle. That was a matter primarily of Longstreet’s corps, a 
part of Hill’s acting as support to his attack. I shall, there¬ 
fore, not enter into the hotly-debated question of responsi¬ 
bility for the failure of the Confederate assault, nor indulge 
in any heroics over its gallantry. 

Nor shall I discuss the question which side is entitled to 
claim the victory. It is clear that the Confederates retired 
first from the field, but they did not do so until the 5th of 
July, the rear guard leaving late on that day, and even then 
they were not pursued. General Sickles, before the Com¬ 
mittee on the Conduct of the War, testified that the reason 
the Confederates were not followed up was a difference of 
opinion among the Federal generals whether their army 
should not retreat; that “it was by no means clear, in the 
judgment of the corps commanders, or of the general in com¬ 
mand, whether they had won or not.” 

It is a suggestive, even a solemnizing reflection, to one 
who is a believer in a superintending Providence, that the 
event of this campaign, like that of the preceding year upon 
Northern soil, turned upon the capture by the enemy of an 
important dispatch—this time the dispatch of President 
Davis positively declining to act upon General Lee’s sugges¬ 
tion to gather an army under Beauregard to threaten Wash¬ 
ington. 

There is but one other scene of the battle-field which I 
care to mention, and that only for a reason already touched 
upon in a like connection, namely, to give those who have 
had no actual experience of war some approximate concep¬ 
tion of the variety and extravagance of horrors which the 
soldier is called upon, from time to time, to undergo. 

On the 4th of July, in readjusting and straightening our 
lines, the guns of Hilary Jones’ battalion were put in posi¬ 
tion on a part of the field which Hill’s corps had fought over 
on the 1st, and upon which the pioneer corps and burying 
parties had not been able to complete their work; so that the 
dead bodies of men and horses had lain there putrefying 
under the summer sun for three days. The sights and smells 


220 


FOUR YEARS UNDER MARSE ROBERT 


that assailed us were simply indescribable—corpses swollen 
to twice their original size, some of them actually burst 
asunder with the pressure of foul gases and vapors. I recall 
one feature never before noted, the shocking distension and 
protrusion of the eyeballs of dead men and dead horses. 
Several human or unhuman corpses sat upright against a 
fence, with arms extended in the air and faces hideous with 
something very like a fixed leer, as if taking a fiendish 
pleasure in showing us what we essentially were and might at 
any moment become. .The odors were nauseating, and so 
deadly that in a short time we all sickened and were lying 
with our mouths close to the ground, most of us vomiting 
profusely. We protested against the cruelty and folly of 
keeping men in such a position. Of course to fight in it was 
utterly out of the question, and we were soon moved away; 
but for the rest of that day and late into the night the fearful 
odors I had inhaled remained with me and made me loathe 
myself as if an already rotting corpse. 

While a prisoner at Johnson’s Island, in the spring of 
’65, I became much interested in one of my fellow-prisoners, 
a Major McDaniel, of Georgia. He did not at first strike 
one as an impressive man. Indeed, if I recollect rightly, he 
had somewhat of an impediment in his speech and was not 
inclined to talk much; but there was a peculiar pith and 
point and weight in what he did say, and those who knew 
him best seemed to regard him as a man of mark and to 
treat him with the greatest respect. The impression he 
made upon me was of simplicity and directness, good sense 
and good character, dignity, gravity, decorum. They told 
me this surprising story of him: 

He was seriously wounded at Gettysburg, and, of course, 
in the hospital. His friends who had been captured and were 
about to be marched off to prison, came in to bid him good- 
by ; but he declared he would not be left behind, that he could 
and would go with them. Both his comrades and the Fed¬ 
eral surgeons and nurses, who were kind and attentive, pro¬ 
tested that this was absolutely out of the question—that he 
would die on the road. 

“Very good,” said McDaniel, “I’ll die then. I am cer¬ 
tainly going, and if you don’t bring a litter and put me on it 


GETTYSBURG 


221 


and carry me, then I will simply get up and walk till I 
drop.” 

Finally the surgeons yielded, saying that, in his condition, 
it would be as fatal to confine him forcibly in bed as to lift 
him out and attempt to transport him; that either course 
was certain death. So the litter was brought, he was placed 
upon it, his friends sadly took hold of the bearing poles and 
started, feeling that the marching column of prisoners was 
really McDaniel’s funeral procession. 

The journey would have been trying enough, even for a 
sound, strong man, but for one in McDaniel’s condition it 
was simply fearful. Why he did not die they could not see, 
yet he did seem to grow weaker and weaker, until at last, as 
the column halted in a little Pennsylvania town and his 
bearers put the litter gently down in the shade, his eyes were 
closed, his face deadly pale, and the majority of those about 
him thought he was gone. The whole population was in the 
streets to see the Rebel prisoners go by, and some stared, 
with gaping curiosity, at the dead man on the stretcher. 

His most intimate friend, Colonel Nesbit, stood nearest, 
keeping a sort of guard over him, and just as he made up 
his mind to examine and see if it was indeed all over, Mc¬ 
Daniel opened his eyes, and then beckoned feebly for Nesbit 
to come close to him. As he reached his side and bent over 
him, McDaniel took hold upon the lapel of Nesbit’s coat 
and drew him yet closer down, until their faces well nigh 
touched, and then, with a great effort and in a voice scarcely 
audible, McDaniel whispered his name—“Nesbit!” 

Nesbit says he confidently expected some last message for 
his family, or some tender farewell to his friends, when, 
with extreme difficulty, his supposed-to-be-dying friend, 
pointing with trembling finger, uttered just these words: 

“Nesbit, old fellow! Did you ever see such an ungodly 
pair of ankles as that Dutch woman standing over there on 
that porch has got ?” 

Of course such a man could not be killed and would not 
die; and it was not a matter of surprise to me when, a few 
years later, he was elected Governor of Georgia by a hun¬ 
dred thousand majority. 


CHAPTER XVII 


BETWEEN GETTYSBURG AND THE WILDERNESS 

Lee Orders His Generals of Division to Report the Condition of Their 
Troops—McLaws Makes the Rounds of His Division—Back in the 
Old Dominion—Tuck and Marse Robert, Dragon and Logan—Meade 
an Able and Wary Opponent—The Homes of the People Within 
the Lines of the Army—A Preacher-Captain Metes Out Stern and 
Speedy Justice—Lee Smarting Under the Tete-de-pont Disaster— 
Pegram Meets Two of His Old Troopers—Mine Run—Mickey 
Free and the Persimmons—Horses Under Artillery Fire—Two Im¬ 
portant Movements of the Federal Forces. 

I confess I have not read current war literature very 
closely, but certainly I have never seen, in any publication, 
any allusion to what is related below; indeed I cannot recall 
any mention of it even in conversation with comrades—and 
yet my recollection of what transpired is clear and vivid. 

Much has been said, and justly, of the unshaken condi¬ 
tion of the Army of Northern Virginia when it retired 
from the Federal front at Gettysburg; and yet it is equally 
true that army had been through a most trying experience, 
and as it was still in hostile territory and a swollen and at 
the time impassable river flowed between it and the friendly 
soil of Old Virginia, Lee had great cause for anxiety, and 
it behooved him to be thoroughly informed and certified as 
to the real condition and spirit of his troops. With this view 
he directed his generals, particularly his generals of division, 
to make prompt and thorough investigation in this regard, 
and to report results to him. McLaws, our division gen¬ 
eral, made a special tour around the camp fires of his men 
one evening, while we were in line of battle at Hagerstown, 
Md., waiting for Meade to attack, or for the Potomac to 


BETWEEN GETTYSBURG AND THE WILDERNESS 223 

fall, so that we might in safety cross it, and I was at special 
pains to follow, and to see and hear what I could. 

McLaws was rather a peculiar personality. He certainly 
could not be called an intellectual man, nor was he a bril¬ 
liant and aggressive soldier; but he was regarded as one of 
the most dogged defensive fighters in the army. His entire 
make-up, physical, mental and moral, was solid, even stolid. 
In figure he was short, stout, square-shouldered, deep-chest¬ 
ed, strong-limbed; in complexion, dark and swarthy, with 
coal-black eyes and black, thick, close-curling hair and beard. 
Of his type, he was a handsome man, but the type was that 
of the Roman centurion; say that centurion who stood at his 
post in Herculaneum until the lava ran over him. It should 
be mentioned in his honor that when General Lee, with scant 
14,000 muskets, held the front of Hooker’s 92,000 at Chan- 
cellorsville, McLaws commanded one of the two divisions he 
had with him. 

He was a Georgian, and his division, consisting of two 
Georgia brigades, one from South Carolina and one from 
Mississippi, was as stalwart and reliable as any in the serv¬ 
ice. Nothing of course could repress our Mississippians, 
but the general effect and influence of the man upon his 
command was clearly manifest in the general tenor of the 
responses he elicited. His men were respectful, but not 
enthusiastic on this occasion. For the most part they kept 
right on with what they happened to be doing when the 
General arrived—cooking, cleaning their arms and accoutre¬ 
ments, or whatever else it might be. He was on horseback, 
riding, as I remember, a small, white pony-built horse, and 
as he rode up into the circle of flickering light of camp fire 
after camp fire to talk with the men, he made quite a marked 
and notable figure. The conversation ran somewhat in this 
line: 

“Well, boys, how are you ?” 

“We are all right, General!” 

“They say there are lots of those fellows over the way 
there.” • 

“Well, they can stay there; we ain’t offerin’ to disturb 
"’em. We’ve had all the fighting we want just now; but if 


224 FOUR YEARS UNDER MARSE ROBERT 

they ain’t satisfied and want any more, all they’ve got to do 
is to come over and get their bellies full.” 

“Suppose they do come, sure enough, boys. What are you 
going to do with them ?” 

“Why, just make the ground blue with ’em, that’s all; 
just manure this here man’s land with ’em. We ain’t asking 
anything of them, but if they want anything of us, why, just 
let ’em come after it, and they can get all they want; but 
they’ll wish they hadn’t come.” 

“Well, now, I can rely upon that, can I ?” 

“You just bet your life you can, General. If we’re asleep 
when they come, you just have us waked up, and we’ll re¬ 
ceive ’em in good style.” 

“Well, good-night, boys. I’m satisfied.” 

McLaws’ “boys” had no occasion upon that field to vin 
dicate their own account of themselves. The enemy did not 
attack, the river did fall, and we returned to our own side 
of the Potomac, but not until the 13th of July. The day we 
got there, or perhaps the day following, “Tuck,” the re¬ 
doubtable wagon driver of the old battery, had a memorable 
experience which he never tired of telling. 

Tuck was a unique character. Up to the date of his en¬ 
listment his horizon had been perhaps more contracted and 
his opportunities fewer and lower than those of any other 
man among us. Naturally he gravitated to the wagon; but 
the man made the position. He was so quiet and steady and 
perfect in the discharge of its humble duties, that I ques¬ 
tion whether there was another private soldier in the battery 
as useful, or one more universally liked and respected, and 
he was as loyal and devoted to the company and his com¬ 
rades as they were to him. He had a fine pair of mules, and 
his affection for them amounted almost to a passion. In¬ 
deed, his entire outfit—mules, harness and wagon—was al¬ 
ways in better condition than any other I ever saw in the 
army, and if there was forage or food, for man or beast, 
to be had anywhere, Tuck was sure to get at least our share 
for us. 

As above said, it was the very day we reached the soil of 
old Virginia, or the day after, that Tuck, or Tucker,—I be- 


BETWEEN GETTYSBURG AND THE WILDERNESS 225 

lieve the latter was really his name,—was dragging along 
with his wagon, through the mud and mist, considerably in 
rear of the battery, grieving that his two faithful mules had 
gone supperless to bed the last night and taken breakfastless 
to the road that morning, when, glancing to the left, his eye 
lit upon a luxuriant field of grass he was just passing, and 
there, right abreast of his wagon, was an enticing set of 
draw-bars. 

On the instant he turned out to the side of the road, un¬ 
hitched his mules, and taking them by their long, strong hal¬ 
ter reins—the best I ever saw upon the harness of an army 
team—let down the bars and led them into the field, and was 
enjoying their breakfast as much perhaps as the mules were, 
when a fine-looking officer, with a rubber cape over his 
shoulders, rode up to the fence and said in a kindly, pleasant 
voice: 

“My man, I like that. I am glad to see you taking such 
good care of your mules, and they like it, too. What a fine 
breakfast they are making! They are fine mules, too!” 

“What, my mules ? You bet they are fine! Marse Robert 
ain’t got no better mules in his army than these two.” 

“What are their names ?” 

“This here gray one, he’s named Dragon, and that ’ere 
black one, his name’s Logan. Dragon, he’s a leetle the best 
of the two, but either one of ’em’s good enough.” 

“Yes indeed, I can well believe that, and I am glad to 
see you taking such good care of this man’s property, too; 
keeping your mules in hand with the lines. I wish all the 
drivers in the army were as careful of their teams and of 
other people’s property as you are. Now this is all right, but 
I wouldn’t stay here too long. There are some gentlemen in 
blue, back here on the road a little way; and—” 

“What’s that! the damn Yankees coming? Come, Dragon, 
come, Logan, we must git out o’ this!” 

“O, I wouldn’t be in quite such a hurry. There is no 
danger yet awhile. Let them finish their breakfast. I only 
meant—” ** 

“No, sir; I ain’t taking no chances. The infernal Yankees 
sha’n’t never git my mules! Come on here, Dragon and 


15 


226 


FOUR YEARS UNDER MARSE ROBERT 


Logan,”—leading them toward the bars,—“we must git out 
o’ this, and mighty quick, too!” 

As he got his pets out in the road and was hitching them 
up again, Colonel Taylor and Colonel Marshall and the rest 
of General Lee’s staff rode up and reported to Tuck’s friend 
and took orders from him, and Tuck waked up to the fact 
that he had been talking with Marse Robert himself for the 
last five minutes. 

“Great Scott!” said he, in relating his adventure, “I felt 
that I had been more impudent than the devil himself, and 
I wanted to get out o’ sight as fast as ever I could; but I 
didn’t feel like letting no common man speak to me for two 
or three days after that.” 

There is a delicious sequel to this story, which seems too 
good to be true, and yet I have every reason to believe it is 
as true as it is good. 

When the final collapse came, Tuck, Dragon and Logan 
were down in North Carolina, where they had been many a 
time before, foraging for themselves and the rest of us— 
horses and men. The returning train of heavily-loaded 
wagons, inadequately protected, was attacked by Federal 
raiders. The shooting, plundering, and burning was going 
on front and rear and rapidly approaching from both direc¬ 
tions. So Tuck halted his wagon, got out all the provisions 
he could carry for himself and them, unhitched Dragon and 
Logan, and took to the woods, and he kept going until he 
got so far away that the braying of his companions could 
not be heard from the road. Then he made himself com¬ 
fortable by the side of a little stream and awaited develop¬ 
ments. 

The next day it rained and he kept close, but the day fol¬ 
lowing was bright and clear, and he took an early morning 
scout to “the big road.” There was the blackened debris of 
burnt wagons, but there had not been a track upon the road 
since the rain, and Tuck concluded that the coast was clear. 
So he went back to his bivouac, mounted Dragon and, lead¬ 
ing Logan, returned to the road and took the direction of 
Richmond. 


BETWEEN GETTYSBURG AND THE WILDERNESS 227 

At last he emerged from the dank, sombre pine forest into 
a clearing, where was a comfortable farm house, and not 
far from the woods he ran upon an old fellow seated on the 
top rail of an old Virginia snake fence, with his spinal 
column comfortably supported by one of the cross stakes, a 
short-stemmed, blackened corncob pipe in his mouth, his 
neglected, stubby beard bristling all over his face, and his 
entire figure and bearing expressive of ill-temper and despair. 

“Good morning,” said Tuck. 

“Mommy’ responded the old chap. 

“Seen anything of the Yankees?” 

“Yes, the infernal thieves cleaned me out day before yes- 
tiddy.” 

“What’s that plow doin’ standing in that ’ere furrow?” 

“Why, the damn Yankees stole the mules right out of it. 
Didn’t leave me a hide or hoof on the place.” 

“I’ve got a good pair of mules here,” said Tuck. 

“Well, go there to the gate, come right in and hitch up, 
and we’ll go snacks on the crap.” 

The bargain was closed as promptly as proposed. Tuck 
plowed until the dinner horn blew. Then he and Dragon 
and Logan went to the sound of it, as if they had been “bred 
and born” on the place. Tuck watered and fed his mules at 
the stable and himself at the house, touching his hat to the 
old man’s pretty daughter as he entered. 

In due course of time he married her, and he owns tfiat 
farm to-day. 

Thus the house of Tucker rode into home and fortune 
upon “my mules,” which its illustrious founder swore “the 
infernal Yankees sha’n’t never git!” 

Some little time since, in a conversation with Mr. George 
Cary Eggleston, he remarked that, years ago, perhaps dur¬ 
ing the war, I mentioned to him an estimate of General 
Meade which I had heard General Lee express, about the 
time of Meade’s appointment to succeed Hooker in command 
of the Army of the Potomac. I do not now quite see how 
I could have overheard the remark precisely at the time indi¬ 
cated, but I have no doubt the story, as far as Lee’s es¬ 
timate of Meade is concerned, is essentially true. As the 


228 


FOUR YEARS UNDER MARSE ROBERT 


story goes, someone was congratulating Lee upon having 
“a mediocre man like Meade” as his opponent, suggesting 
that he would have an easy time with him. But Lee inter¬ 
rupted the speaker, saying with emphasis that General 
Meade was the most dangerous man who had as yet been 
opposed to him; that he was not only a soldier of intelli¬ 
gence and ability, but that he was also a conscientious, 
careful, thorough and painstaking man; that he would make 
no such mistake in his (Lee's) front as some of his prede¬ 
cessors had made, and that if he made any mistake in 
Meade's front he would be certain to take advantage of it. 

It is noteworthy how exactly this estimate was fulfilled 
and confirmed, not only at Gettysburg, but in the campaign 
of the succeeding autumn upon Virginia soil, in which 
Meade showed himself to be able and cautious, wary and 
lithe; incomparably superior to Pope or Burnside, or even 
Hooker. In October, at Bristoe Station, when we were 
attempting to outflank him, as we had done Pope, he not 
only escaped by giving such attention to his “lines of retreat” 
as the latter had boasted he would not give, but he actually 
inflicted upon us a decided defeat, accentuated by the al¬ 
most unparalleled capture of five pieces of artillery; and that, 
when his force engaged was inferior to ours. In November, at 
the tete-de-pont at Rappahannock Bridge, he wrote for us 
what Colonel Taylor calls “the saddest chapter in the history 
of this army,” by snapping up two brigades, of twelve or fif¬ 
teen hundred men, and four pieces of artillery, which had 
been exposed, by an arrangement of his lines more nearly 
questionable perhaps than any other General Lee was ever 
known to make. In December, at Mine Run, while he failed 
in his main design of turning our flank and forcing us to 
abandon our fortified line on the Rapidan, and so pushing 
us back on Hanover Junction, and while he got decidedly 
the worst of the fighting, yet he succeeded in getting away 
without the overwhelming defeat we hoped to have inflicted 
upon him; and, upon the whole, no preceding Federal com¬ 
mander of the Army of the Potomac had made anything like 
as good a showing in an equal number of moves against 
their great Confederate opponent. 


BETWEEN GETTYSBURG AND THE WILDERNESS 229 

Apropos of the time and the region in which the opera¬ 
tions just commented upon occurred,—being the great battle¬ 
field of central Virginia, threshed over for three years by the 
iron flail of war,—Billy sends me what he very justly terms 
“the most pathetic and harrowing incident of my service in 
the Army of Northern Virginia.” I give it substantially in 
his own words: 

“One day while we were encamped in the Poison Fields 
of Spottsylvania County, Tom Armistead and I were sum¬ 
moned to Captain McCarthy's quarters. We found him 
talking to a woman very poorly but cleanly dressed, who 
seemed in bitter distress. The captain ordered us to go 
with the woman and bury her child. We went with her to 
her home, a small house with but two rooms. There we 
found her mother, an aged woman, and the child, a boy of 
ten, who had just died of a most virulent case of diphtheria. 
The father, a soldier in some Virginia regiment, was of 
course absent, and of neighbors there were none in that 
war-stricken country. 

“Armistead and I bathed and dressed the little body and 
then had to rip planks off part of the shed room of the house 
to make something to bury it in, tearing off the palings of 
the garden to get nails, having no saw and being compelled 
to cut and break the planks with an axe. Before we had 
finished the box the battery bugle sounded Harness and 
hitch up.” We stayed long enough to finish the box and 
place the body in it, but could not stay to dig the grave. We 
had to leave these two poor women alone with the unburied 
child. 

“There was not a farm animal, not even a fowl, on the 
place. How these women and many others in the track 
of both those great armies lived was then, and always has 
been, a mystery to me. War truly is hell; how utterly devil¬ 
ish are those who, by cruelty and license, add to its horrors.” 

Another incident of this same period and locality occurs 
to me. 

One of the Georgia batteries of our battalion—“Fra¬ 
zier's,” as it was called—was composed largely of Irishmen 
from Savannah—gallant fellows, but wild and reckless. The 


23O FOUR YEARS UNDER MARSE ROBERT 

captaincy becoming vacant, a Georgia Methodist preacher, 
Morgan Calloway, was sent to command them. He proved 
to be, all in all, such a man as one seldom sees—a combina¬ 
tion of Praise God Barebone and Sir Philip Sidney, with a 
dash of Hedley Vicars about him. He had all the stem 
grit of the Puritan, with much of the chivalry of the Cava¬ 
lier and the zeal of the Apostle. 

No man ever gave himself such a “send-off” as Calloway 
did with his battery. He gripped their very souls at the 
first pass. 

Not long after he took command the battalion spent a few 
days in these Poison Fields of Spottsylvania. The very 
evening we arrived, before we had gotten fixed for the night, 
a woman of the type of the one above described by Billy 
came to battalion headquarters and complained that one of 
the men in “that company over yonder”—pointing to where 
Calloway’s guns were parked—had gone right into her pig 
pen, before her very eyes, and killed and carried off her 
Pig- 

The colonel directed me to look after the matter, and the 
woman and I walked over to the battery and laid the com¬ 
plaint before Calloway, who asked her whether she thought 
she could point out the man. She said she could, and he or¬ 
dered his bugler to blow “an assembly.” 

When the line was formed he gave the command, “To the 
rear, open order, march!” the rear rank stepping back two 
paces further to the rear, and he and I and the woman start¬ 
ed to walk down the front rank; he, as was his wont when on 
duty, having his coat buttoned to the chin and his sabre 
belted about his waist. 

When we had gotten a little more than half way down 
the line some lewd fellow of the baser sort, sotto voce, 
made some improper remark about the woman, and his com¬ 
rades began to titter. With a single sweep of his right arm, 
Calloway drew his sabre and delivered his blow. The wea¬ 
pon flashed past my face and laid open the scalp of the chief 
offender, who dropped in his tracks, bleeding like a stricken 
bullock. There was a shuffle of feet moving to his aid. 


BETWEEN GETTYSBURG AND THE WILDERNESS 231. 

“Stand fast in ranks! Eyes front!” cried Calloway, the 
sabre dripping with blood still in his sword hand. Needless 
to say they did stand, as if carved out of stone, while in ab¬ 
solute silence Calloway, the woman, and I, completed our in¬ 
spection of the front, and when about midway of the rear 
rank she, without hesitation, confidently identified the thief. 
His manner and bearing under the charge convicted him, and 
Calloway had him bucked and gagged and sequestered his 
pay to reimburse the woman. He then gave the order, 
“break ranks!” and sent the surgeon to attend the wounded 
man. 

I never saw a company of men more impressed. Indeed, I 
was myself as much impressed as any of them, and was at 
considerable pains to catch the feelings and comments of the 
men. 

“Whew!” said a big fellow, who had been a leader in all 
the lawlessness of the battery, “what sort of a preacher do 
you call this? Be-dad! and if he hits the Yankees half as 
hard as he hit Dan, it’ll be all right. We’ll have to watch 
him about that, boys. We’ll get his gait before long.” 

As several times remarked, I have not been able to deter¬ 
mine exactly when and where I rejoined the old battalion as 
its adjutant; but since writing the preceding chapter I am 
satisfied it must have been shortly after the battle of Gettys¬ 
burg, and either at or before we reached Hagerstown; as 
otherwise I should not have witnessed McLaws’ evening 
visitation to the camp fires of his division. 

It may be well here to say that our battalion was ordered 
to Hanover Junction in the autumn of 1863, about two 
months after our return from Gettysburg, with the view of 
going with Longstreet’s corps to the West; but, either from 
lack of transportation or from some other cause, we did not 
go, but passed some weeks on or near the Central Railroad, 
gradually working our way up toward the main body of the 
army again, and were sent, after Mine Run, to guard the 
middle fords of the Rqpidan. 

I have quoted Colonel Taylor as saying that the disaster at 
Rappahannock Bridge was the saddest chapter in the history 
of the Army of Northern Virginia, and I am confident Gen- 


232 FOUR YEARS UNDER MARSE ROBERT 

eral Lee felt it very keenly. Some weeks after we had begun 
our winter’s watch on the Rapidan, General Ewell, who was 
in command of the forces picketing the stream from Clark’s 
Mountain down, received a message from General Lee that 
he would come down next day, bringing two or three gen¬ 
eral officers with him, and wished General Ewell, with two 
cr three of his artillery officers, to ride with them along the 
lines. General Ewell notified Colonel Cabell and myself to 
be at his headquarters next morning, where we met General 
Lee, General Early, and Gen. John Pegram, and rode with 
them along the hills skirting the stream, discussing chiefly 
positions for artillery, until we came to a hill, over against 
Raccoon or Somerville Ford, where we had an exceptionally 
fine view of the Federal camps across the river. 

The party halted on the summit and General Lee was 
more stirred than I had ever before seen him. He either re¬ 
ferred expressly to Rappahannock Bridge and the affair of 
the tete-de-pont, or the implied reference to it was perfectly 
clear. Sweeping the stretch of the enemy’s camps with his 
gauntleted right hand he said: 

“What is there to prevent our cutting off and destroying 
the people in these nearer camps on this side of that hill, be¬ 
fore those back yonder on the other side could get to them 
to help them?” 

Early at once answered, as if the question had been pro¬ 
pounded to him alone: 

“This infernal river: how are you going to cross that 
without giving warning?” 

“Ford it, sir; ford it!” 

“What are you going to do with your pneumonia pa¬ 
tients?” whined Old Jube with a leer. 

Thereupon Ewell and Pegram sided strongly with Early 
in deprecating such an undertaking that winter season, 
though the weather at the time was open and fine. General 
Lee said no more, and I have never thought he seriously en¬ 
tertained such a purpose; but he was evidently smarting 
under the slap in the face he had received, and he panted 
for some opportunity to return the blow. 


BETWEEN GETTYSBURG AND THE WILDERNESS 233 

While we continued to look at the Federal camps two 
horsemen rode down to the other bank to water their horses. 
Pegram seemed much interested and said he believed he 
would gallop down and interview “those fellows.” As he 
started, General Lee said, in a deep voice, “You’d better be 
careful, sir!” Pegram was a superb horseman and splen¬ 
didly mounted, and I never saw a finer equestrian figure than 
he presented as he dashed off down the hill, never making 
an uneven movement in the saddle. When he reached the 
flat, through which the river ran, the Federal horses 
raised their heads, and their riders shaded their eyes with 
their hands, gazing intently at the rapidly-approaching 
horseman and striving to make him out. As he dashed into 
the stream amid a cloud of spray, they advanced rapidly to 
meet him, and we felt a shade of uneasiness; but the next 
moment we saw that the meeting was not only friendly but 
enthusiastic, and after the first fervors of the greeting had 
subsided the three sat upon their horses in the middle of the 
stream and had a conference so long that we actually tired 
waiting. When Pegram returned he told us, with a glowing 
countenance, that the troopers had belonged to his company 
in the old army and that their hearts were in the same 
place toward him. He was a noble gentleman, and no one 
suggested such a thing as military information acquired or 
divulged under such circumstances. 

I recall a trivial incident of Mine Run which may serve 
as an introduction to what may prove of interest. I had 
been sent with a message to Gen. William N. Pendleton, 
chief of artillery of the army, and told only that he was on 
the lines. So I had to ride from one end to the other while 
the artillery fire was heavy, and did not find the general 
after all. But just as I go to the end of the lines I did find, a 
little back of them, a fine tree full of ripe persimmons, the 
first I had seen that autumn, in perfect condition for eating. 
I dismounted, threw my bridle rein over the pommel of the 
saddle, climbed the tree and gave it a good shake. Mean¬ 
while several shells whistled not far above my head and I 
distinctly recall laughing to myself at the difference two 
and a half years had wrought. Just after I was mustered 


2 34 


FOUR YEARS UNDER MARSE ROBERT 


into service I should have considered that I had made a nar¬ 
row escape from shells passing as near as these, and that it 
was little less than profane to have so much as thought of 
persimmons “under such solemn circumstances.” 

But my horse, “Mickey Free,” and I had come to a more 
practical state of mind. We were badly in need of lunch— 
the persimmons would furnish a very acceptable one, and it 
never occurred to either of us that the shells constituted any 
serious obstacle to our gathering and eating luncheon. I re¬ 
call vividly how he raised his head and pricked up his ears, 
watching where the persimmons fell thickest and going there 
and gobbling them up with the greatest gusto. After I 
had shaken off all that were ready to drop, I proceeded to 
gather my portion, which I thought, under the circum¬ 
stances, should be the lion’s share; but Mickey evidently 
thought differently. I can see the dear old fellow now trot¬ 
ting ahead of me to the spots where the fruit lay thickest, 
and as I tried to dart in and pick up my share, backing his 
ears, wheeling his rear upon me and executing a sort of con¬ 
tinuous kick with one hind leg, just to bully me a little and 
without any intention of really doing me harm. Many 
horses and most dogs are very fond of persimmons, and 
Mickey and I had the fullest and finest feed of them that 
morning at Mine Run that we ever enjoyed during our army 
comradeship. 

I have always been fond of what we are pleased to term 
“the lower animals,” particularly of horses and dogs, and 
have already devoted several pages to the biographies of the 
only two dogs I was intimately acquainted with during the 
war. I ask permission now to say a few words about the 
horses, whose starvation and sufferings and wounds and 
death I really believe used to affect me even more than the 
like experience of my human fellow-beings; and this be¬ 
cause, as Grover said, at Ball’s Bluff, the men “ ’listed ter git 
killed,” and the horses didn’t. 

Some of these sensitive creatures were mortally afraid of 
artillery fire. I have seen the poor brutes, when the shells 
were flying low and close above their backs, squat until their 
bellies almost touched the ground. They would be per- 


BETWEEN GETTYSBURG AND THE WILDERNESS 235 

fectly satisfied during battle, or at least entirely quiet, if their 
drivers remained with them, especially on their backs; and 
when the men were compelled to absent themselves for a 
time and returned again to their teams, I have heard the 
horses welcome them with whinnies of satisfaction and 
content, and have seen them, under fire, rub their heads 
against their drivers with confiding and appealing affection. 

And the poor animals loved not only their drivers but 
each other. I have heard and seen a horse, whose mate 
was killed at his side, utter an agonized and terrified neigh, 
meanwhile shuddering violently, and have known a horse so 
bereaved persistently refuse to eat, and pine away and die. 

A few horses, the grand progeny of Job’s horse, may 
“mock at fear * * * and say among the trumpets, ha! ha!” 
But it should be remembered that Job’s horse probably did 
not have artillery fire to face. However, I have known 
horses which seemed to be thrilled rather than terrified even 
by the thunder of the guns. Mickey was a horse of this 
class, and I used to say of him that, however he might be 
dragged out with fatigue, under fire he moved like a steam 
engine on steel springs, and that any coward could be a hero 
on his back. Even wounds had no power to daunt him. He 
was struck repeatedly and very dangerously, but it never 
dampened his martial ardor at all. He was withal a horse 
of great intelligence and sensibility, as stories I have yet to 
tell of him will show. 

There were only two important movements of the Federal 
forces in Virginia which intervened between Mine Run and 
the opening of the great campaign of 1864, and neither of 
them requires extended comment from me. The first was 
the pushing of a corps across the Rapidan, at Morton’s 
Ford, immediately in front of the Howitzers. I cannot re¬ 
call the exact date—though I think it was early in February 
—or what corps it was; nor was the object or purpose of the 
movement at all clear. It may have been with the view of 
ascertaining whether General Lee had recently detached and 
sent off to other fields’any considerable bodies of troops; or 
it may have been thought that the main body of his infantry 
was encamped so far back of the lines that the artillery on 


236 FOUR YEARS UNDER MARSE ROBERT 

the river and its small infantry support could be snapped up 
before adequate reinforcement could reach them. But if 
such an opportunity ever existed, the invaders did not act 
with vigor in availing themselves of it. The Howitzers 
maintained a determined front, the infantry arrived and 
poured into the works, and the Federals, after suffering 
some little loss, withdrew, leaving the object of the move¬ 
ment shrouded in mystery, and returned across the river. 

I may be pardoned for relating in this connection an amus¬ 
ing flurry of my good friend, General Ewell, which forced 
me for a few moments into rather an awkward position. 
The General was somewhat excited over the length of time 
the troops took to enter the works after getting upon the 
ground, and particularly over the performance of a stiff old 
Georgia colonel, whose regiment was facing the works and 
who was actually side-stepping it to the right, to clear the 
right flank of another regiment that had just entered the 
works, and this while the enemy was advancing up the slope 
in our front, and there was not a man in the lines to our 
right. 

The General was storming at the colonel, and I, sitting 
on my horse near-by, could not repress a titter. Suddenly 
“Old Dick” turned to me and exclaimed: 

“Mr. Stiles, for the Lord’s sake, take that regiment and 
put it into the works!” 

Somewhat startled, I asked, “Do you really mean that, 
General?” 

“Of course I do!” 

Putting spurs to my horse, I trotted down the line of 
the regiment, calling out as I reached its right flank, “Right 
face, forward, run—march!” In a moment or so I had the 
men in the works, and returning, reached the General just 
as the old colonel got there and tendered his sword. Gen¬ 
eral Ewell declined to receive the sword, ordered him back 
to his command, and turning to me said:— 

“Do you still insist, sir, that you don’t know tactics 
enough to justify your being promoted?” 

The other movement was what is generally known as “the 
Dahlgren raid,” which started in three co-operating cavalry 


BETWEEN GETTYSBURG AND THE WILDERNESS 237 

columns, under Kilpatrick, Dahlgren and Custer, about the 
last of February, 1864, having Richmond for its objective, 
with the intention to sack and burn the city and kill the 
prominent Confederate officials. .The history of the expe¬ 
dition is familiar. I did not come into personal contact 
with it in any way, and it cannot therefore be said to fall 
within the domain of reminiscence. If, however, the gen¬ 
erally-accepted version of the famous “Dahlgren orders” be 
correct,—which would seem to be beyond question,—then 
it would be mild characterization to term them “infamous!” 

It is a pleasure in this connection to note that General 
Lee’s adjutant general has put on record the statement that 
“The disclaimer of General Meade was most candid and 
emphatic.” 


CHAPTER XVIII 


CAMPAIGN OF '64—THE WILDERNESS 

Grant—His Rough Chivalry—His Imperturbable Grit—His Theory of 
Attrition—Its Effect Upon the Spirit of Lee’s Army—An Artillery¬ 
man of That Army in Campaign Trim—Sundown Prayer-meetings— 
The Wilderness an Infantry Fight—A Cup of Coffee with Gen. 
Ewell in the Forest—Ewell and Jackson—Longstreet Struck Down. 

Without recanting the statement that Chancellorsville is 
the most brilliant of Lee’s single battles, I do not hesitate to 
say that in my opinion—that is, if and so far as I am en¬ 
titled to an opinion on the subject—the campaign of 1864, 
from the Wilderness to Cold Harbor, inclusive, is the great¬ 
est of all Lee’s campaigns—incomparably the greatest exhi¬ 
bition of generalship and soldiership ever given by the great 
leader and his devoted followers. 

Manifestly, one of the indispensable elements in any esti¬ 
mate of this campaign is the man now, for the first time, op¬ 
posed to us. I do not propose to enter upon any extended 
discussion or analysis of General Grant’s powers. In com¬ 
mon with the majority of the more intelligent soldiers of 
the Army of Northern Virginia, I thought and think well 
of him as a soldier, both as to character and capacity. We 
all felt that he behaved handsomely, both to General Lee 
and to his men, at Appomattox, and that, later, in standing 
between Lee and his leading officers and the threatened 
prosecutions for treason, he exhibited strong manhood and 
sense of right. Many of us, too, have heard of other in¬ 
stances in his career of a rough chivalry always attractive 
to men. 

Just before the surrender, on my way to Petersburg as a 
prisoner of war, I was standing on the roadside near General 
Custis Lee when he was shocked by a report of the death of 


CAMPAIGN OF '64—THE WILDERNESS 239 

his mother. I reminded him that, at such times, the wildest 
rumors were apt to be in circulation, and suggested his ap¬ 
plying, by field telegraph, to Grant for leave to go to Rich¬ 
mond to ascertain the truth. He did so, and at once received 
leave, with transportation to Richmond. Upon finding there 
was nothing in the rumor, he reported promptly at the office 
of the provost marshal, but was there told that orders had 
been sent by General Grant that General Custis Lee should 
not be received as a prisoner of war, and he never succeeded 
in getting back into prison or any sort of captivity, though 
he made earnest efforts to do so. 

As to Grant's grit and determination, all his predecessors 
together did not possess as much of these manly qualities, 
and we used to hear fine tales, too, of his imperturbability; 
for instance, that soon after he crossed the Rapidan in '64, 
when someone dashed up to his headquarters and announced 
with great excitement the capture of his pontoons, everyone 
else seemed to be shattered; but Grant deliberately removed 
his cigar from his mouth, blew a very fine smoke wreath or 
ring, and said quietly, “If I beat General Lee I sha’n’t want 
any pontoons; and if General Lee beats me I can take all 
the men I intend to take back across the river on a log.” 

As to his capacity and our estimate of it, we did not think 
much of him as a strategist, but we did credit him with the 
vigor and trenchancy of mind that cut right through to the 
only plan upon which, as I believe, we ever could have been 
overcome—and the nerve to adhere to that plan relentlessly, 
remorsely to the very end, in spite of all the suffering and 
shrinking and weeping of the people. That plan was the 
simple but terrible one of attrition. As Colonel Taylor 
says: 

If one hundred and forty thousand men are made to grapple in a 
-death struggle with sixty thousand men; of the former, twenty thousand 
should survive the total annihilation of the latter, even though the 
price exacted for such destruction be in the ratio of two to one. 
Behold the theory of the Federal commander and an epitome of his con¬ 
struction of strategy, as exemplified on the sanguinary field extending 
from the Wilderness to James River. 


24O FOUR YEARS UNDER MARSE ROBERT 

But there were two other subordinate or rather prepara¬ 
tory points that were indispensable to the efficient working 
of this scheme, and these also were settled by Grant, as we 
understood at the time, before he would consent to take 
charge of the main Federal army, the Army of the Potomac. 
These points were, first, that he should have all the men he 
wanted to fight the Army of Northern Virginia, and to that 
end should control all the armies and levies of the Union, as 
well as have access to all the recruiting grounds of the 
world; and second, that the Confederate armies should not 
be recruited from the only ground from which they could 
possibly draw reinforcements—the military prisons of the 
North—and to this end there should be no exchange of pris¬ 
oners; that he did not wish to be reinforced from a source 
that must give Lee man for man with him; that it would 
be cheaper and more merciful in the end that Northern 
soldiers should starve and rot in Southern prisons, the Con¬ 
federate authorities, as he well knew, not having the re¬ 
sources to prevent this result. And so he held right on to— 
Appomattox. 

If anyone deems this a shallow or weak or self-evident 
scheme, then I for one do not agree with him. It is not 
the scheme or plan of a great military genius, and it is one 
as to the moral justification of which I feel serious question; 
but upon this basis, such as it is, we all felt Grant’s power, 
and I for one am willing to admit his greatness. 

So much for the new theory of the struggle and the iron- 
nerved and iron-souled man who had now taken charge of its 
enforcement, and at the same time of our old antagonist, the 
Army of the Potomac. 

What effect, if any, did the new scheme, so far as it was 
divulged or foreshadowed, have upon the spirits of our sol¬ 
diery before the first shot was fired? I find my comrades 
differ radically as to this—I mean the more intelligent, ob¬ 
servant and thoughtful of them, those whose views upon 
such a subject should be worth most. Willy Dame, one of 
the best men of the old battery,—No. 4 at the fourth gun, 
now the Rev. William M. Dame, D. D., of Baltimore, Md.,— 
who has written a charming reminiscence or personal narra- 


CAMPAIGN OF ’ 6 \ -THE WILDERNESS 24I 

tive of this campaign, which ought to be in print, is em¬ 
phatic in stating that the same old familiar spirit of light¬ 
hearted jollity and fun characterized the men of the battery, 
and of the commands they encountered and passed on the 
4th and 5th of May, as we all poured from our winter quar¬ 
ters down into the Wilderness fight. 

Billy, on the contrary,—my Billy, who has already ap¬ 
peared frequently in these reminiscences,—is of very differ¬ 
ent mind and memory touching this point. His recollection is 
that he was deeply impressed with the change, and as he had 
just made his way back from furlough through the army, 
and passed the night with an infantry regiment from his 
own county that contained many of his former schoolmates 
and friends and neighbors, he had enjoyed rather unusual 
opportunities for testing the matter. He did not detect any 
depression, or apprehension of disaster, or weakness of 
pluck or purpose; but he says he did miss the bounding, 
buoyant spirit, the effervescent outbursts, the quips, the 
jests, the jokes, the jollities, such as had usually character¬ 
ized the first spring rousings of the army and the first meet¬ 
ings and minglings of the different commands as they shout¬ 
ed their tumultuous way to battle. He says that there seems 
to have sifted through the ranks the conviction that the 
struggle ahead of us was of a different character from any 
we had experienced in the past—a sort of premonition of the 
definite mathematical calculation, in whose hard, unyielding 
grip it was intended our future should be held and crushed. 

Billy mentions as a fact, which tends to demonstrate that 
his analysis of the views and feelings of the men is correct, 
that every man in our battery who was absent on furlough 
the 1st of May, ’64, returned instantly, some of them hav¬ 
ing just reached home. I cannot forbear mentioning that 
Billy was one of these latter, and my youngest brother, who 
had joined us from Georgia some months before, another. 
Some of these men arrived before we left camp at Morton’s 
Ford; and others walked many hours, following the solemn 
sound of the firing, and found us in the midst of the sombre 
Wilderness, and two at bloody Spottsylvania. One of these 
two, a Petersburg boy, was delayed because of having fought 


16 


242 FOUR YEARS UNDER MARSE ROBERT 

at home one day under Beauregard against Butler. To this 
I may add the fact that another man of the battery, wounded 
during the campaign, apologized humbly to the captain for 
the imprudence which led to his wound, because, as he said, 
he well understood what the loss of one man meant to us 
now. 

Upon the whole, while not formally deciding, as the Su¬ 
preme Court of Texas recently did in a telegraph case,—as 
to the inherent difference between “Willy and Billy,”—yet 
I am inclined to think in this particular that Billy is right— 
that in the spring of 1864 there was very generally diffused 
throughout the army a more or less definite realization or 
consciousness that a new stage in the contest had been 
reached and a new theory broached; the mathematical theory 
that if one army outnumbers another more than two to one, 
and the larger can be indefinitely reinforced and the smaller 
not at all, then if the stronger side will but make up its mind 
to stand all the killing the weaker can do, and will keep it so 
made up, there can be but one result. Billy says the realiza¬ 
tion of this new order of things did not affect the resolution 
of the men, but that it did affect their spirits. I can only 
say I believe he is exactly correct. 

Willy Dame, in his reminiscences above mentioned, gives 
a graphic account of the break up on the 4th of May of the 
winter camp of the Howitzers at Morton’s Ford, in the 
course of which he presents this excellent picture of the full 
dress of a Confederate artilleryman in campaign fighting 
trim : 

“In less than two hours after the order was given, the 
wagon was gone and the men left in 'campaign trim.’ This 
meant that each man had one blanket, one small haversack, 
one change of underclothes, a canteen, cup and plate of tin, a 
knife and fork, and the clothes in which he stood. When 
ready to march, the blanket, rolled lengthwise, the ends 
brought together and strapped, hung from left shoulder 
across under right arm; the haversack—furnished with 
towel, soap, comb, knife and fork in various pockets, a 
change of underclothes in the main division, and whatever 
rations we happened to have in the other—hung on the left 


CAMPAIGN OF '64—THE WILDERNESS 243 

hip; the canteen, cup and plate, tied together, hung on the 
right; toothbrush, at will, stuck in two button holes of jacket 
or in haversack; tobacco bag hung to a breast button, pipe in 
pocket. In this rig, into which a fellow could get in just 
two minutes from a state of rest, the Confederate soldier 
considered himself all right and all ready for anything; in 
this he marched and in this he fought. Like the terrapin, 
'all he had he carried on his back,' and this ‘air weighed 
about seven or eight pounds.” 

It will be noted that I have prefaced this catalogue by the 
expression “full dress.” If I may be allowed, I would criti¬ 
cise the list as a little too full. I cannot recall ever having 
eaten out of a plate, or with a knife and fork, or having 
owned any or either of these articles while a private soldier, 
certainly not after the first few months of the war. And 
even after I became an officer, as adjutant of the battalion, 
I never carried plate, knife, or fork with me on my horse 
after the campaign opened. Colonel Cabell and I often ate 
out of the same tin cup or frying pan. Indeed, I carried 
nothing on my horse save a pair of very contracted saddle 
pockets and the cape of my overcoat, and Colonel Cabell car¬ 
ried his pockets, his overcoat, and an oil cloth. We slept 
together, lying on his oil cloth, he wearing his overcoat when 
cold, and both of us covered with my cape. 

Another feature of Willy Dame's account of the Howitzer 
good-by to winter quarters, at the opening of the campaign 
of '64, is well worthy of record. He says that the very last 
public and general act of the men was, of their own account, 
to gather for a farewell religious service,—Bible reading, 
singing of a hymn, prayer, words of exhortation and cheer, 
—and that this meeting closed with a solemn resolution to 
hold such a service daily during the campaign when practica¬ 
ble, and as near as might be to the sunset hour, and then he 
adds: 

“But however circumstanced, in battle, on the battle-line, 
in intervals of quiet, or otherwise, we held that prayer hour 
nearly every day, at sunset, during the entire campaign. 
And some of us thought and think, that the strange exemp¬ 
tion our battery experienced, our little loss in the midst of 


244 FOUR YEARS UNDER MARSE ROBERT 

unnumbered perils and incessant service during that awful 
campaign, was that in answer to our prayers the God of 
Battles 'covered our heads in the day of battle/ and was 
merciful to us, because we 'called upon Him.’ If any think 
this is a 'fond fancy/ we don't 

Lee’s ready acceptance of the gage of battle flung down 
by Grant, his daring and unexpected attack upon him in the 
thickets of the Wilderness, while it appeared to be the 
height of reckless audacity, was really the dictate of the 
wisest and most balanced prudence. In such a country the 
advantage of Grant’s overwhelming preponderance of num¬ 
bers was reduced to a minimum , and his great parks of ar¬ 
tillery were absolutely useless. Besides, to retire and fall 
back upon an inner line was just what Grant desired and ex¬ 
pected Lee to do, and would have been in exact furtherance 
of Grant’s plans. In this instance, as usual, Lee’s audacity 
meant the exercise of his unerring military instinct and 
judgment. 

As just intimated, the Wilderness was essentially, yes, al¬ 
most exclusively, an infantry fight, and we of the artillery 
saw, in fact, next to nothing of it, but hovered around its 
edge, thrilled and solemnized by the awful roar and swell and 
reverberation of the musketry and by the procession of 
wounded men and prisoners that streamed past. 

The first incident of the march or the battle-field that 
impressed itself upon my memory is that early on the morn¬ 
ing of the 5th of May, while riding ahead of the battalion, 
I came upon my old friend, General Ewell, crouching over a 
low fire at a "cross roads” in the forest, no one at the time 
being nigh except the two horses, and a courier who had 
charge of them and the two crutches. The old hero, who had 
lost a leg in battle, could not mount his horse alone and never 
rode without at least one attendant, who always followed 
close after him, carrying his "quadruped pegs,” or rather his 
tripod pegs. The General was usually very thin and pale,— 
unusually so that morning,—but bright-eyed and alert. He 
was accustomed to ride a flea-bitten gray named Rifle, who 
was singularly like him—so far as a horse could be like a 
man. I knew Rifle well and noted that both he and his mas- 


CAMPAIGN OF ’64—THE WILDERNESS 245 

ter looked a little as if they had been up all night and had not 
had breakfast. 

I have before mentioned the General’s great kindness to 
me. When we were alone he often called me “My child,” 
and he embarrassed me by repeated recommendations for 
promotion. We were captured very late in the war, in the 
same battle and about the same time, and he not only hon¬ 
ored and touched me greatly by expressing on the field and 
in the presence of several general officers, also prisoners, his 
high estimate of and strong affection for me, but he wrote 
me in prison one or two kind letters giving me earnest 
advice as to my immediate future. 

On this morning he asked me to dismount and take a cup 
of coffee with him. He was a great cook. I remember on 
one occasion, later in the war, I met him in the outer defenses 
of Richmond, and he told me someone had sent him a tur¬ 
key leg which he was going to “devilthat he was strong 
on that particular dish; that his staff would be away, and I 
must come around that evening and share it with him. I 
willingly accepted on both occasions, and on both greatly en¬ 
joyed a chat with the General and the unaccustomed treat. 
On this Wilderness morning, while we were drinking our 
coffee, I asked him if he had any objection to telling me his 
orders, and he answered briskly, “No, sir; none at all—just 
the orders I like—to go right down the plank road and 
strike the enemy wherever I find him.” 

It is glory enough for any man to have been Stonewall 
Jackson’s trusted lieutenant. Ewell simply worshiped his 
great commander; indeed, it was this worship that led him 
to the highest. He worshiped Jackson, and yet they were 
not exactly kindred spirits. The following little story, 
which I quote from Dr. McGuire, but which I heard many 
times before reading it in print, well illustrates one of the 
points of difference between them. 

At the battle of Port Republic an officer commanding a regiment of 
Federal soldiers and riding a* snow-white horse was very conspicuous 
for his gallantry. He frequently exposed himself to the fire of our men 
in the most reckless way. So splendid was this man’s courage that Gen¬ 
eral Ewell, one of the most chivalrous gentlemen I ever knew, at some 


246 FOUR YEARS UNDER MARSE ROBERT 

risk to his own life, rode down the line and called to his men not to 
shoot the man on the white horse. After a while, however, the officer 
and the white horse went down. A day or two after, when General Jack- 
son learned of the incident, he sent for General Ewell and told him not to 
do such a thing again; that this was no ordinary war, and the brave and 
gallant Federal officers were the very kind that must be killed. “Shoot 
the brave officers and the cowards will run away and take the men with 
them? 

I do not say Jackson was not right, but I do say that in 
this double picture dear Old Dick’s is the most lovable. 

It is a little singular that though nominally attached to 
his command longer than any other, yet I probably had less 
acquaintance and association with General Longstreet than 
with any other of the more prominent generals of the Con¬ 
federate army in Virginia. Indeed I do not recall ever hav¬ 
ing spoken to him or having heard him utter so much as 
one word. True, he was several times sent off on detached 
service, upon which we did not accompany him, and while 
nominally of his corps we had just been for some five 
months under Ewell’s command; yet, after making allow¬ 
ance for all this, I could not but feel that there must be 
something in the nature of the man himself to account for 
the fact that I knew so little of him. Colonel Freemantle, 
of the Cold Stream Guards, who wrote a very charming 
diary entitled, I think, “Two Months in the Confederate 
Lines,” says, however, if I rightly remember, that the rela¬ 
tions between Longstreet and his staff were exceptionally 
pleasant, and reminded him more of those which obtained 
in the British service than any others he observed in America. 
In this Wilderness fight I was suddenly brought in contact 
with a scene which greatly affected my conception of the 
man under the regalia of the general. 

It may not have been generally observed that Jackson and 
Longstreet were both struck down in the Wilderness, just 
one year apart, each at the crisis of the most brilliant and, 
up to the moment of his fall, the most successful movement 
of his career as a soldier, and each by the fire of his own men. 
I had been sent forward, perhaps to look for some place 
where we might get into the fight, when I observed an ex- 


CAMPAIGN OF ' 64 —THE WILDERNESS 247 

cited gathering some distance back of the lines, and pressing 
toward it I heard that General Longstreet had just been shot 
down and was being put into an ambulance. I could not 
learn anything definite as to the character of his wound, but 
only that it was serious—some said he was dead. When the 
ambulance moved off, I followed it a little way, being 
anxious for trustworthy news of the General. The mem¬ 
bers of his staff surrounded the vehicle, some riding in 
front, some on one side and some on the other, and some be¬ 
hind. One, I remember, stood upon the rear step of the 
ambulance, seeming to desire to be as near him as possi¬ 
ble. I never on any occasion during the four years of the 
war saw a group of officers and gentlemen more deeply dis¬ 
tressed. They were literally bowed down with grief. All 
of them were in tears. One, by whose side I rode for some 
distance, was himself severely hurt, but he made no allusion 
to his wound, and I do not believe he felt it. It was not alone 
the general they admired who had been shot down—it was, 
rather, the man they loved. 

I rode up to the ambulance and looked in. They had 
taken off Longstreet’s hat and coat and boots. The blood 
had paled out of his face and its somewhat gross aspect was 
gone. I noticed how white and dome-like his great fore¬ 
head looked and, with scarcely less reverent admiration, how 
spotless white his socks and his fine gauze undervest, save 
where the black red gore from his breast and shoulder had 
stained it. While I gazed at his massive frame, lying so 
still, except when it rocked inertly with the lurch of the ve¬ 
hicle, his eyelids frayed apart till I could see a delicate line 
of blue between them, and then he very quietly moved his 
unwounded arm and, with his thumb and two fingers, care¬ 
fully lifted the saturated undershirt from his chest, holding 
it up a moment, and heaved a deep sigh. “He is not dead,” I 
said to myself, “and he is calm and entirely master of the 
situation—he is both greater and more attractive than I have 
heretofore thought him,” 

Some years after the war I read in a newspaper a short 
paragraph which brought this scene vividly to my mind. 
Longstreet, at the Wilderness, was wounded in the shoulder, 


248 


FOUR YEARS UNDER MARSE ROBERT 


fighting Hancock's corps; Hancock had previously been 
wounded in the thigh, fighting Longstreet’s. One evening 
while Hancock was in command in New Orleans, he and 
Longstreet entered Hancock’s theatre box together. The 
entire audience rose and burst into enthusiastic cheers, and 
refused to be seated or to be quiet until the two generals ad¬ 
vanced together to the front of the box, when Hancock said: 
“Ladies and Gentlemen—I have the pleasure of presenting 
to you my friend, General Longstreet, a gentleman to whom 
I am indebted for an ungraceful limp, and whom I had the 
misfortune to wing in the same contest.” 

Both sides suffered severely in the Wilderness, but except 
perhaps upon the basis of Grant’s mathematical theory of at¬ 
trition, the Confederates got decidedly the best of the fight¬ 
ing. Next came the race for Spottsylvania Court House, 
and the checkmate of Warren’s corps by Stuart’s dismounted 
cavalry. Such were the prominent features of the entire 
campaign. It was a succession of death grapples and recoils 
and races for new position, and several times during the 
campaign the race was so close and tense and clearly defined 
that we could determine the exact location of the Federal 
column by the cloud of dust that overhung and crept along 
the horizon parallel to our own advance. 


CHAPTER XIX 


SPOTTSYLVANIA 

Death of a Gallant Boy—Mickey Free Hard to Kill—The ioth and 12th 
of May—Handsome Conduct of the “Napoleon Section” of the 
Howitzers—Frying Pan as Sword and Banner—Prayer with a 
Dying Federal Soldier—“Trot Out Your Deaf Man and Your Old 
Doctor”—The Base of the Bloody Angle—The Musketry Fire— 
Majestic Equipoise of Marse Robert. 

At Spottsylvania Court House, when the artillery and in¬ 
fantry arrived and took the place of the gallant cavalrymen, 
who had saved the day and the place for us, the guns of our 
battalion, as I remember, were the first to reach the field. 
As adjutant, I had ridden with the old battery to its selected 
position, and, these guns in place, had returned to the col¬ 
umn and was aiding in locating another of the batteries, 
when the fire upon the Howitzer position became so heavy 
that I galloped back to see how they were faring and if they 
needed anything. As I rode rapidly in rear of the first gun 
of the battery, at which my youngest brother, Eugene, had 
been made a driver, I noted that the fire had slackened con¬ 
siderably, but that one of his horses had been killed; that he 
had very practically pulled the dead horse around into 
proper position, and he and the driver of the other team were 
fast constructing quite a passable earthwork over and about 
him. Just as I observed this, “Genie” caught sight of me, 
and springing up, shouted after me, in fine voice and good 
old Georgia nursery phrase: 

“Bubba, Bubba, I wasn't scared a bit—not a bit!” 

A line of stalwart veteran infantry was lying down be¬ 
hind the guns, and as the plucky, but uninitiated, boy shouted 
this reassuring greeting, several of these seasoned old fel¬ 
lows raised up partly and looked around, and one of them 


250 FOUR YEARS UNDER MARSE ROBERT 

called out, “Where’s that fellow that wasn’t scared a bit? 
He must be some greenhorn or fool!” And then there was a 
burst of laughter at the lad’s expense. But I shouted back 
to him that he musn’t mind them; that they were just guy¬ 
ing him, and were glad enough to be behind his gun and 
his dead horse, too. 

At one of the positions the Howitzers took on these lines 
1 witnessed a striking scene, or rather the climax of it—the 
rest was told me shortly after I reached the guns. 

There was a tall, black-haired, pale-faced boy in the com¬ 
pany, named Cary Eggleston, a cousin, I think, of George 
Cary Eggleston, whom he strongly resembled. He was 
No. 1 at the third gun; said to be the best No. 1 in the bat¬ 
tery, and even before his heroic end, known to be a fellow of 
most gallant spirit. He was one of that small class of men 
who really love a fight for its own sake. He was not yet 
fully developed, and ordinarily appeared rather gangling and 
loose-jointed, but it required only the thrill of action to in¬ 
spire him and to make his movements as graceful as they 
were powerful and effective. His “manual of the piece” was 
really superb when his gun was hotly engaged. 

At the very height of a fierce flurry his left arm was 
nearly severed from his body by a fragment of shell. At 
that moment a comrade, who had returned while on fur¬ 
lough and had walked in all nearly forty miles to reach us, 
came running up to his gun.- The disabled No. 1 handed 
him the rammer, saying: 

“Here, Johnny, take it! You haven’t had any fun yet.” 
When he had thus surrendered his scepter and appointed his 
own successor, he had a crude tourniquet applied to his arm; 
but insisted upon walking to the field hospital, refusing a lit¬ 
ter or even a man to accompany him. 

I had been with another of the batteries of the battalion, 
but hearing the rapid firing about the Howitzer position, 
was galloping down there, when I saw Eggleston walking 
out. He had his unwounded side toward me, and I called to 
him to know where and why he was going. He answered 
by turning his other side and holding up the stump, from 
which his shattered arm hung by ragged shirt sleeve and 


SPOTTSYLVANIA 


251 


torn tendon, and then he shook the clenched fist of his 
sound arm toward the Federal lines, shouting to me that he 
would soon be back to fight them with that. The unconquer¬ 
able boy died the following evening. 

I have spoken several times of the “Howitzer position” 
in the Spottsylvania lines. Up to the 12th of May I think 
only two of their guns were on the main or front line, and 
even on the 12th the four were not together. Prior to the 
12th two rifles of this battery and two of the Troupe Artillery 
were some distance back upon a hill, having been so placed 
with a view of engaging certain of the enemy’s batteries to 
the relief of our front line, and of having a wider range and 
sweep of the attacking lines and columns. 

One evening, about the 9th of May, I was riding into the 
position of some of our guns on the front line and passing 
through a little copse of woods, there being at the time 
quite a sharp musketry fire on the lines, and bullets clinking 
against the resinous boles of the pine trees about me, when 
suddenly my horse, Mickey Free, was shot, the ball making a 
loud slap when it struck. He sprang aside, but settled right 
down again to his course, and it was some little time before 
I could find any trace of the shot. I soon discovered, how¬ 
ever, that the ball had cut into one of my saddle pockets, 
but not through it, and there it was, inside. A moment 
later he was struck again, and this time reared and plunged 
violently. Glancing around I saw that the ball had entered 
back of my legs about the mid line of his body one side and 
had come out about opposite on the other, and, as he persist¬ 
ed in lying down and rolling, I concluded that the poor fel¬ 
low was mortally hurt, and sprang off, endeavoring to re¬ 
move saddle and bridle, which I finally accomplished, with 
some difficulty and at some peril of being kicked or rolled 
upon. I looked at him a few moments in great distress, but 
the fire becoming really heavy, I threw saddle and bridle 
across my shoulder and toddled into the works on foot. 

My recollection is that when the attack had been repulsed 
I went back to see if Mickey was dead, or if I could do any¬ 
thing for him, but that he had disappeared; that I could not 
track him far and soon gave it up, concluding I would never 


252 FOUR YEARS UNDER MARSE ROBERT 

see him again. I certainly laid down that night one of 
“Lee’s Miserables” as we used to term ourselves, after read¬ 
ing Victor Hugo's great novel—a soldier edition of his 
works in Confederate “sheep's wool paper” having been dis¬ 
tributed largely throughout the army the preceding winter. 
Judge of my surprise and delight at learning, early in the 
morning, that Mickey had in some mysterious way found 
our headquarter wagon and was being cared for there, and 
that he did not seem to be contemplating immediate death, 
but on the contrary had drunk copiously and eaten spar¬ 
ingly, as was a Confederate artillery horse’s duty to do. As 
soon as I could get off I went back to see the dear old fel¬ 
low, and there he was, as good as ever, except that a rope 
appeared to have been drawn around the lower part of his 
body, just under the skin, and a little back of the proper line 
of the saddle girth. The Minie bullet had of course been de¬ 
flected, and had passed beneath the skin, half around his 
body, without penetrating the cavity. 

My dear friend, Willy Dame, in his reminiscences already 
quoted, says some very pleasant and complimentary things 
of “our old adjutant.” These things I do not pretend to 
gainsay or deny. It would be easy to deny and not hard, 
perhaps, to disprove them; but motive is lacking. Why 
should I ? The fact is, I shouldn't and I won't. But there 
are other things, or at least there is one other thing he says, 
and says elaborately, with date and circumstance,—the date 
is the 10th of May—calculated to bring my gray hair into 
ridicule and contempt, which, of course, I deny, even if I can¬ 
not disprove. The difficulty of proving a negative is well un¬ 
derstood. I certainly go as far as this—I have no recollection 
whatever of such occurrence or utterance as he mentions, 
barring the nasty performances of those twenty-pounder 
Parrott shells. I recollect a good many of these quite similar 
to what Willy describes. But here is what he says: 

Robert Stiles, the adjutant of the battalion, who had been until lately 
a member of our battery and was very devoted to it and his comrades 
in it, had come to the line to see how we were getting on, and gave us 
news of other parts of the line. He, Beau Barnes, and others of us, were 


SPOTTSYLVANIA 


253 


standing by our guns talking, when a twenty-pounder Parrott shell came 
grazing just over our guns, passed on, and about forty yards behind us 
struck a pine tree about two and a half to three feet in diameter. The 
shell had turned. It struck that big tree sideways and cut it entirely off, 
and threw it from the stump. It fell in an upright position, struck the 
ground, stood for an instant and then came crashing down. It was a 
very creepy suggestion of what that shell might have done to one of us. 
A few moments after, another struck the ground right by us and ric- 
ochetted. After it passed us, as was frequently the case, we caught 
sight of it and followed its upward flight until it seemed to be going 
straight to the sky. 

Stiles said, “There it goes, as though flung by the hand of a giant.” 
Beau Barnes, who was not poetical, exclaimed, “Giant be darned; there 
ain’t any giant can fling ’em like that!” He was right! 

If the foregoing was not written with malicious intent to 
expose me to the scorn of all sensible and practical people, 
then my belief is that Willy Dame dreamed the absurd story; 
but if Barnes and I did speak under the circumstances men¬ 
tioned, and both are correctly quoted, then I admit the re¬ 
doubtable “Beau” had decidedly the best of it, and I apolo¬ 
gize humbly. 

The 10th of May, '64, was preeminently a day of battle 
with the Army of Northern Virginia. I know, of course, 
that the 12th is commonly regarded as the pivotal day, the 
great day, and the Bloody Angle as the pivotal place, the 
great place, of the Spottsylvania fights, and that for an hour 
or so, along the sides and base of that angle, the musketry 
fire is said to have been heavier than it ever was at any other 
place in all the world, or for any other hour in all the tide 
of time. But for frequency and pertinacity of attack, and re¬ 
petition and constancy of repulse, I question if the left of 
General Lee’s line on the 10th of May, 1864, has ever been 
surpassed. I cannot pretend to identify the separate at¬ 
tacks or to distinguish between them, but should think there 
must have been at least a dozen of them. One marked 
feature was that, while fresh troops poured to almost every 
charge, the same muskets in the hands of the same men met 
the first attack in the morning and the last at night; and 
so it was that the men who in the early morning were so full 
of fight and fun that they leaped upon the breastworks and 


254 


FOUR YEARS UNDER MARSE ROBERT 


shouted to the retiring Federals to come a little closer the 
next time, as they did not care to go so far after the clothes 
and shoes and muskets—were so weary and worn and heavy 
at night that they could scarcely be roused to meet the charg¬ 
ing enemy. 

The troops supporting the two Napoleon guns of the 
Howitzers were, as I remember, the Seventh (or Eighth) 
Georgia and the First Texas. Toward the close of the day 
everything seemed to have quieted down, in a sort of im¬ 
plied truce. There was absolutely no fire, either of musketry 
or cannon. Our weary, hungry infantry stacked arms and 
were cooking their mean and meagre little rations. Some¬ 
one rose up, and looking over the works—it was shading 
down a little toward the dark—cried out: “Hello! What’s 
this? Why, here come our men on a run, from—no, by 
Heavens! it’s the Yankees!” and before anyone could realize 
the situation, or even start toward the stacked muskets, the 
Federal column broke over the little work, between our 
troops and their arms, bayonetted or shot two or three who 
were asleep before they could even awake, and dashed upon 
the men crouched over their low fires—with cooking utensils 
instead of weapons in their hands. Of course they ran. 
What else could they do ? 

The Howitzers—only the left, or Napoleon section, was 
there—sprang to their guns, swinging them around to bear 
inside our lines, double-shotted them with canister and fairly 
spouted it into the Federals, whose formation had been 
broken in the rush and the plunge over the works, and who 
seemed to be somewhat massed and huddled and hesitating, 
but only a few rods away. Quicker almost than I can tell 
it, our infantry supports, than whom there were not two 
better regiments in the army, had rallied and gotten to their 
arms, and then they opened out into a V-shape, and fairly 
tore the head of the Federal column to pieces. In an incredi¬ 
bly short time those who were able to do so turned to fly and 
our infantry were following them over the intrenchments; 
but it is doubtful whether this would have been the result 
had it not been for the prompt and gallant action of the ar¬ 
tillery. 


SPOTTSYLVANIA 


255 


There was an old Captain Hunter,—it seems difficult to 
determine whether of the Texas or the Georgia regiment,— 
who had the handle of his frying pan in his hand, holding 
the pan over the hot coals, with his little slice of meat sizzling 
in it, when the enemy broke over. He had his back to them, 
and the first thing he knew his men were scampering past 
him like frightened sheep. He had not been accustomed to 
that style of movement among them, and he sprang up and 
tore after them, showering them with hot grease and hotter 
profanity, but never letting go his frying pan. On the con¬ 
trary, he slapped right and left with the sooty, burning bot¬ 
tom, distributing his favors impartially on Federal and Con¬ 
federate alike—several of his own men bearing the black 
and ugly brand on their cheeks for a long time after and oc¬ 
casionally having to bear also the captain’s curses for hav¬ 
ing made him lose his meat that evening. He actually led 
the counter-charge, leaping upon the works, wielding and 
waving his frying pan, at once as sword and banner. 

When it became evident that the attack had failed, I sug¬ 
gested to the chaplain—who happened to be with the How¬ 
itzer guns, perhaps for that sundown prayer meeting which 
Willy Dame mentioned—that there might be some demand 
for his ministrations where the enemy had broken over; so 
we walked up there and found their dead and dying piled 
higher than the works themselves. It was almost dark, but 
as we drew near we saw a wounded Federal soldier clutch 
the pantaloons of Captain Hunter, who at that moment was 
passing by, frying pan in hand, and heard him ask, with 
intense eagerness: “Can you pray, sir? Can you pray?” 
The old captain looked down at him with a peculiar ex¬ 
pression, and pulled away, saying, “No, my friend, I don’t 
wish you any harm now, but praying’s not exactly my 
trade.” 

I said to the chaplain, “Let’s go to that man.” As we 
came up he caught my pants in the same way and uttered 
the same words: “Can you pray, sir? Can you pray?” I 
bent over the poor fellow, turned back his blouse, and saw 
that a large canister shot had passed through his chest at 
such a point that the wound must necessarily prove mortal. 


256 FOUR YEARS UNDER MARSE ROBERT 

and that soon. We both knelt down by him, and I took his 
hand in mine and said: “My friend, you haven’t much 
time left for prayer, but if you will say after me just these 
simple words, with heart as well as lips, all will be well with 
you: ‘God have mercy on me, a sinner, for Jesus Christ’s 
sake.’ ” 

I never saw such intensity in human gaze, nor ever heard 
such intensity in human voice, as in the gaze and voice of 
that dying man as he held my hand and looked into my 
face, repeating the simple, awful, yet reassuring words I had 
dictated. He uttered them again and again, with the death 
rattle in his throat and the death tremor in his frame, until 
someone shouted, “They are coming again!” and we broke 
away and ran down to the guns. It proved to be a false 
alarm, and we returned immediately—but he was dead, yes, 
dead and half-stripped; but I managed to get my hand upon 
his blouse a moment and looked at the buttons. He was 
from the far-off State of Maine. 

It was long before I slept that night. It had been an 
unparalleled day. The last hour, especially, had brought to¬ 
gether elements so diverse and so tremendous, that heart and 
brain were overstrained in attempting to harmonize and 
assimilate them. This was the first time in all my career as 
a soldier that I had heard from a dying man on the battle¬ 
field any expression that indicated even so much as a belief 
in the existence of any other world than this. 

What did it all mean? When that Federal soldier and I 
had our brief conference and prayer on the dividing line be¬ 
tween the two worlds, neither of us felt the slightest tremor 
of uncertainty about it. To both of us the other world was 
as certainly existing as this, and infinitely greater. Would 
I ever see him again? If so, would both of us realize that 
our few moments of communion and of prayer had meant 
more perhaps than all the struggles, that day, of the great 
embattled armies? I went to sleep at last that night, as I 
shall go this night, feeling that it all was and is too much 
for me, and committing myself and all my perplexities to 
the One Being who is “sufficient for these things,” and able 
to lead us safely through such a world and such experiences. 


SPOTTSYLVANIA 


257 


It is an interesting coincidence that on this very day, the 
10th of May, ’64, at the point christened two days later as 
“The Bloody Angle,” the Second Howitzers rendered a serv¬ 
ice even more important and distinguished perhaps than the 
gallant conduct of the First Company just recorded; a service 
which, in the opinion of prominent officers thoroughly ac¬ 
quainted with the facts and every way competent and quali¬ 
fied to judge, was deemed to have saved General Lee’s army 
from being cut in twain. 

There is one other feature or incident of the closing fight 
of the 10th of May which may be worthy of record, not 
alone because of its essentially amusing nature, but also 
because of a very pleasant after-clap or remainder of it later 
on. There were two men in the First Howitzers, older than 
most of us, of exceptionally high character and courage, 
who, because of the deafness of the one and the lack of a cer¬ 
tain physical flexibility and adaptation in the other, were not 
well fitted for regular places in the detachment or service 
about the gun. For a time one or both of them took the po¬ 
sition of driver, but this scarcely seemed fitting, and finally 
they were both classed as “supernumeraries,” but with spe¬ 
cial duties as our company ambulance corps, having charge, 
under the surgeon of the battalion, of our company litters 
and our other simple medical and surgical outfit. For 
this and other reasons, the elder of these two good and gritty 
soldiers was always called “Doctor.” 

When the break occurred these two men, always on the ex- 
tremest forward verge of our battle line, were overwhelmed 
wdth amazement, not so much at the irruption of the enemy, 
as at what seemed to be the demoralized rout of the Geor¬ 
gians and Texans. They ran in among them asking explana¬ 
tion of their conduct, then appealing to them and exhort¬ 
ing them—the Doctor in most courteous and lofty phrase: 
“Gentlemen, what does this mean? You certainly are not 
flying before the enemy! Turn, for God’s sake; turn, and 
drive them out!” Then, with indignant outburst: “Halt! 
you infernal cowards!” and suiting the action to the word, 
these choloric cannoneers tore the carrying poles out of their 
litters, and sprang among and in front of the fugitives, be- 


17 


258 


FOUR YEARS UNDER MARSE ROBERT 


laboring them right and left, till they turned, and then turn¬ 
ed with them, following up the retreating enemy with their 
wooden spears. 

Some weeks later, after we had reached Petersburg, in the 
nick of time to keep Burnside out of the town, and had 
taken up what promised to be a permanent position and 
were just dozing off into our first nap in forty-eight hours, 
an infantry command passing by, in the darkness, stumbled 
over the trail handspikes of our guns and broke out in the 
usual style: 

“O, of course! Here’s that infernal artillery again; al¬ 
ways in the way, blocking the roads by day and tripping us 
up at night. What battery is this, any way ?” 

Some fellow, not yet clean gone in slumber, grunted out: 

“First Company, Richmond Howitzers.” 

What a change! Instantly there was a perfect chorus of 
greetings from the warm-hearted Texans. 

“Boys, here are the Howitzers! Where’s your old deaf 
man? Trot out your old Doctor. They’re the jockeys for 
us. We are going to stay right here. We won’t get a 
chance to run if these plucky Howitzer boys are with us.” 

Billy tells me that he remembers, word for word, the last 
crisp sentence Col. Stephen D. Lee uttered the morning he 
complimented the old battery on the field of Frazier’s Farm; 
that he said, “Men, hereafter when I want a battery, I’ll 
know where to get one!” Two years later, at the base of 
the Bloody Angle, General Ewell seems to have been of the 
same opinion. He held our centre, which had just been 
pierced and smashed and his artillery captured. He wanted 
guns to stay the rout and steady his men, and he sent to the 
extreme left for Cabell’s Battalion. I do not mean that the 
old battalion, or either of its batteries, was counted among 
the most brilliant artillery commands of the army, but I do 
claim that the command did have and did deserve the repu¬ 
tation of “staying where it was put,” and of doing its work 
reliably and well. 

The nth had been a sort of off-day with us, very little 
business doing; but the 12th made up for it. As I remember, 
it was yet early on the morning of the 12th that we were 


SPOTTSYLVANIA 


259 


sent for. We went at once, and did not stand upon the 
order of our going, though I think two guns of the How¬ 
itzers led the column, followed by two guns of Carlton's 
battery, the Troupe Artillery. If I remember correctly, our 
other guns occupied positions on the line from which they 
could not be withdrawn. As Colonel Cabell and I rode 
ahead, as before mentioned in another connection, to learn 
precisely where the guns were to be placed, we passed Gen¬ 
eral Lee on horseback, or he passed us. He had only one or 
two attendants with him. His face was more serious than I 
had ever seen it, but showed no trace of excitement or 
alarm. Numbers of demoralized men were streaming past 
him and his voice was deep as the growl of a tempest as he 
said: “Shame on you, men; shame on you! Go back to 
your regiments; go back to your regiments!” 

I remember thinking at the moment that it was the only 
time I ever knew his faintest wish not to be instantly re¬ 
sponded to by his troops; but something I have since read 
induces me to question whether he did not refer to some spe¬ 
cial rendezvous, somewhere in the rear, appointed for the 
remnants of the shattered commands to rally to. Be this 
as it may, every soldier of experience knows that when a man 
has reached a certain point of demoralization and until he has 
settled down again past that point, it is absolutely useless to 
attempt to rouse him to a sense of duty or of honor. I 
have seen many a man substantially in the condition of the 
fellow who, as he executed a flying leap over the musket of 
the guard threatening to shoot and crying “Halt!”—called 
back, “Give any man fifty dollars to halt me, but can't halt 
myself!" 

When we came back to our four guns and were leading 
them to the lines and the positions selected for them, just 
as we were turning down a little declivity, we passed again 
within a few feet of General Lee, seated upon his horse on 
the crest of the hill, this time entirely alone, not even a 
courier with him. I was much impressed with the calmness 
and perfect poise of his bearing, though his centre had just 
been pierced by forty thousand men and the fate of his army 
trembled in the balance. He was completely exposed to the 


26 o 


FOUR YEARS UNDER MARSE ROBERT 


Federal fire, which was very heavy. A half dozen of our 
men were wounded in making this short descent. In this 
connection I have recently heard from a courier—who, with 
others, had ridden with the General to the point where we 
saw him—that, observing and remarking upon the peril to 
which they were subjected, he ordered all his couriers to 
protect themselves behind an old brick kiln, some one hun¬ 
dred and fifty yards to the left, until their services were re¬ 
quired, but refused to go there himself. This habit of ex¬ 
posing himself to fire, as they sometimes thought, unnec¬ 
essarily, was the only point in which his soldiers felt that 
Lee ever did wrong. The superb stories of the several oc¬ 
casions during this campaign when his men refused to ad¬ 
vance until he retired, and, with tears streaming down their 
faces, led his horse to the rear, are too familiar to justify 
repetition, especially as I did not happen to be an eye-wit¬ 
ness of either of these impressive scenes. 

Our guns were put in at the left base of the Salient, and 
there, in full sight and but a short distance up the side of 
the angle, stood two or three of the guns from which our 
men had been driven, or at which they had been captured. 
The Howitzers had two clumsy iron three-inch rifles, and 
Captain McCarthy and I offered, with volunteers from that 
company, to draw these captured guns back into our lines, 
provided we were allowed to exchange our two iron guns 
for two of these, which were brass Napoleons. This would 
have given the battery a uniform armament and prevented 
the frequent separation of the sections. There was not at 
the time a Federal soldier in sight, and some of us walked 
out to or near these guns without being fired upon. It might 
have been a perilous undertaking, yet I think General Ewell 
would have given his consent; but the officer to whose com¬ 
mand the guns belonged protested, saying he would himself 
have them drawn off later in the day. If it ever could have 
been done, the opportunity was brief; later it became im¬ 
practicable, and the guns were permanently lost. 

Barrett, Colonel Cabell's plucky little courier, rode almost 
into the works with us, and we had left our horses with 
him, close up, but in a position which we thought afforded 


SPOTTSYLVANIA 


26 l 


some protection. In a few moments someone shouted to 
me that Barrett was calling lustily for me. I ran back 
where I had left him and was distressed to see my good 
horse, Mickey, stretched on the ground. Barrett said he 
had just been killed by a piece of shell which struck him in 
the head. The poor fellow’s limbs were still quivering. I 
could see no wound of any consequence about the head or 
anywhere else; while I was examining him he shuddered 
violently, sprang up, snorted a little blood and was again “as 
good as new.” As soon as practicable, however, we sent Bar¬ 
rett and the three horses behind that brick kiln back on the 
hill, or to some place near by of comparative safety. I was 
afraid that Mickey, who seemed to have “gotten his hand 
in,” might keep up this trick of getting “killed,” as Barrett 
said, once too often. I may as well say right here that the 
noble horse got safely through the war, but was captured 
with his master at Sailor’s Creek. 

When our guns first entered the works, or rather were sta¬ 
tioned on the line just back of the little trench, there seemed 
to be comparatively few infantrymen about. One thing that 
pleased us greatly was, that our old Mississippi brigade, 
Barksdale’s, or Humphreys’, was supporting us; but it must 
have been just the end of their brigade line, and a very thin 
line it was. We saw nothing of the major-general of our 
division. General Rodes, of Ewell’s corps, was the only 
major-general we saw. He was a man of very striking ap¬ 
pearance, of erect, fine figure and martial bearing. He con¬ 
stantly passed and repassed in rear of our guns, riding 
a black horse that champed his bit and tossed his head 
proudly, until his neck and shoulders were flecked with white 
froth, seeming to be conscious that he carried Caesar. Rodes’ 
eyes were everywhere, and every now and then he would stop 
to attend to some detail of the arrangement of his line or his 
troops, and then ride on again, humming to himself and 
catching the ends of his long, tawny moustache between his 
lips. 

It had rained hard all night and was drizzling all day, 
and everything was wet, soggy, muddy, and comfortless. 
General Ewell made his headquarters not far off, and seem- 


262 


FOUR YEARS UNDER MARSE ROBERT 


ed busy and apprehensive, and we gathered from everything 
we saw and heard, especially from General Lee’s taking his 
position so near, that he and his generals anticipated a re¬ 
newal of the attack at or about this point. From the time 
of our first approach, stragglers from various commands had 
been streaming past. I noticed that most of them had their 
arms and did not seem to be very badly shattered, and I tried 
hard to induce some of them to turn in and reinforce our 
thin infantry line. But they would not hearken to the voice 
of the charmer, charming never so wisely, and finally I ap¬ 
pealed to General Rodes and asked him for a detail of men to 
throw off a short line at right angles to the works so as to 
catch and turn in these stragglers. He readily assented, 
and we soon had a strong, full line, though at first neither 
Rodes’ own men nor our Mississippians seemed to appreciate 
this style of reinforcement. 

One point more, with regard to our experience at the left 
base of the Salient, and we have done with the “Bloody 
Angle.” Every soldier who was there, if he opens his 
mouth to speak or takes up his pen to write, seems to feel it 
solemnly incumbent upon him to expatiate upon the fearful 
fire of musketry. What I have to say about the matter will 
doubtless prove surprising and disappointing to many; but 
first let me quote Colonel Taylor’s account of it, from pages 
130 and 131 of his invaluable work, so frequently referred 
to: 

* * * The army was thus cut in twain, and the situation was well 
calculated to test the skill of its commander and the nerve and courage 
of the men. Dispositions were immediately made to repair the breach, 
and troops were moved up to the right and left to dispute the further 
progress of the assaulting column. Then occurred the most remarkable 
musketry fire of the war—from the sides of the Salient, in the possession 
of the Federals, and the new line forming the base of the triangle, occu¬ 
pied by the Confederates, poured forth from continuous lines of hissing 
fire an incessant, terrific hail of deadly missiles. No living man nor 
thing could stand in the doomed space embraced within those angry 
lines; even large trees were felled, their trunks cut in twain by the bul¬ 
lets of small arms. 

Every intelligent soldier, on either side, is aware of Colo¬ 
nel Taylor’s deserved reputation for careful and unpreju- 


SPOTTSYLVANIA 


263 


diced observation and investigation, and for correct and ac¬ 
curate statement, and General Fitz Lee, in his “Life of Gen¬ 
eral Robert E. Lee,” at p. 335, fully agrees with him, saying: 
“The musketry fire, with its terrific leaden hail, was be¬ 
yond comparison the heaviest of the four years of war. In 
the bitter struggle, trees, large and small, fell, cut down by 
bullets.” 

Still, I am bound to say I saw nothing that approached 
a justification of these vivid and powerful descriptions. Of 
course the fire was at times heavy, but at no time, in front of 
our position, did it approximate, for example, the intensity 
of the fire during the great attack at Cold Harbor, a few 
weeks later. One singular feature of the matter is that we 
appear to have been at the very place where this fire is said 
to have occurred, and at the very time; for we were sent 
for by General Ewell, as I recollect, early on the morning of 
the 12th, and we remained at the left base of the Salient and 
within sight of some of the captured guns all that day and 
until the line was moved back out of the bottom, to the crest 
of the little ridge above mentioned. The only explanation I 
can suggest is that the fighting must have been much hotter 
further to the right. 

It may be well just here to explain, while we cannot ex¬ 
cuse, the existence not alone of the great Salient of Spottsyl- 
vania, with its soldier nickname of “Bloody Angle,” and its 
fearful lesson of calamity, but also of other like faulty forma¬ 
tions in our Confederate battle lines. 

It was noticeable toward the close of the war what skilful, 
practical engineers the rank and file of the Army of Northern 
Virginia had become; how quickly and unerringly they de¬ 
tected and how unsparingly they condemned an untenable 
line—that is, where they were unprejudiced critics, as for in¬ 
stance, where fresh troops were brought in to reinforce or 
relieve a command already in position. I seem to hear, 
even now, their slashing, impudent, outspoken comment: 

“Boys, what infernal fool do you reckon laid out this 
line? Why, anyone can see we can’t hold it. We are cer¬ 
tain to be enfiladed on this flank, and the Yankees can even 
take us in reverse over yonder. Let’s fall back to that ridge 
we just passed!” 


264 FOUR YEARS UNDER MARSE ROBERT 

But where troops had themselves originally taken posi¬ 
tion, it was a very different matter. This was one point 
where Johnny was disposed to be unreasonable and insub¬ 
ordinate—not to consider consequences or to obey orders. 
He did not like to fall back from any position he had himself 
established by hard fighting, especially if it was in advance 
of the general line. So well recognized was his attitude in 
this regard that it had well nigh passed into a proverb: 

“No, sir! We fought for this dirt, and we're going to 
hold it. The men on our right and left ought to be here 
alongside of us, and would be if they had fought as hard as 
we did!” 

Of course, Johnny would not violate or forget the funda¬ 
mental maxim of geometry and war, that a line must be con¬ 
tinuous; that his right must be somebody’s left and his left 
somebody’s right; but the furthest he would go in recogni¬ 
tion of the maxim was the compromise of bending back his 
flanks, so as to connect with the troops on his right and left 
who had failed to keep up. So, this was done, he did not 
seem to care how irregular the general line of battle was. 
One cannot look at a map of any of our great battles without 
being impressed with the tortuous character of our lines. 

I have myself heard a major-general send a message back 
to Army Headquarters, by a staff officer of General Lee, that 
he didn’t see why his division should be expected to aban¬ 
don the position they had fought for just to accommodate 

General -, whose troops had fallen back where his 

had driven the enemy. On that very occasion, if my mem¬ 
ory serves me, this selfish, stupid obstinacy cost us the lives 
of hundreds of men. 

One word more in connection with the straightening of 
our lines. Of course we moved after dark, and, as I re¬ 
member, but a short distance. After we got to our new po¬ 
sition I discovered that I had lost my pocket-knife, or some 
such trivial article of personal outfit, but difficult to replace; 
so, contrary to Colonel Cabell’s advice—he didn’t forbid my 
going—I went back on foot and in the dark to look, or 
feel, for it. I had no difficulty in finding the spot where we 
had been lying, and began to grope and feel about for the 



SPOTTSYLVANIA 


265 


knife, having at the time an unpleasant consciousness that 
I was running a very foolish and unjustifiable risk, for the 
Minies were hissing and singing and spatting all about me. 
There was a man near me, also on his hands and knees, 
looking or feeling for something. While glancing at the 
shape, dimly outlined, I heard the unmistakable thud of a 
bullet striking flesh. There was a muffled outcry, and the 
crouching or kneeling figure lay stretched upon the ground. 
1 went to it and felt it. The man was dead. In a very brief 
time I was back in our new position and not thinking of 
pocket-knives. 


CHAPTER XX 


FROM SPOTTSYLVANIA TO COLD HARBOR 

Another Slide to the East, and Another, and Another—The Armies 
Straining Like Two Coursers, Side by Side, for the Next Goal— 
Grant Waiting for Reinforcements—Lee Seriously Indisposed—One 
of His Three Corps Commanders Disabled by Wounds, Another by 
Sickness—Mickey and the Children—“It Beats a Furlough Hollow’* 
—A Baby in Battle—Death of Lawrence M. Keitt and Demoraliza¬ 
tion of His Command—Splendid Service of Lieut. Robt. Falligant, 
of Georgia, with a Single Gun—Hot Fighting the Evening of June 
ist—Building Roads and Bridges and Getting Ready June 2d— 
Removal of Falligant’s Lone Gun at Night. 

After feeling our lines, feinting several times, and mak¬ 
ing, on the 18th, what might perhaps be termed a genuine 
attack, Grant, on the evening of the 20th, slid off toward 
Bowling Green; but although he got a little the start of Lee, 
yet, when he reached his immediate objective, Lee was in 
line of battle at Hanover Junction, directly across the line of 
further progress. It is the belief of many intelligent Con¬ 
federate officers that if Lee had not been attacked by dis¬ 
abling disease, the movements of the two armies about the 
North Anna would have had a very different termination. 
Grant ran great risk in taking his army to the southern bank 
of the river with Lee on the stream between his two wings; 
it is fair to add that he seems to have realized his peril and to 
have withdrawn in good time. 

General Lee’s indisposition, about this time, was really 
serious. Some of us will never forget how shocked and 
alarmed we were at seeing him in an ambulance. General 
Early, in his address before mentioned, says of this matter: 


One of his three corps commanders had been disabled by wounds at 
the Wilderness, and another was too sick to command his corps, while 


FROM SPOTTSYLVANIA TO COLD HARBOR 267 

he himself was suffering from a most annoying and weakening disease. 
In fact nothing but his own determined will enabled him to keep the field 
at all; and it was there rendered more manifest than ever that he was 
the head and front, the very life and soul of his army. 

It was about this date that General Lee, as I remember a 
second time, broached the idea that he might be compelled to 
retire—an idea which no one else could contemplate with any 
sort of composure; happily, as soon as the disease was check¬ 
ed his superb physical powers came to his aid, and he soon 
rallied and regained his customary vigor and spirits. 

Perhaps no other position of equal labor and responsibility 
can be mentioned, nor one which makes such drafts upon 
human strength and endurance, as the command of a great 
army in a time of active service. I recall during the Gettys¬ 
burg campaign being equally impressed with the force of 
this general proposition, and with the almost incredible phy¬ 
sical powers of General Lee. On two occasions, just before 
and just after we recrossed the Potomac, I was sent upon 
an errand which required my visiting army, corps, and divi¬ 
sion headquarters, and, so far as practicable, seeing the re¬ 
spective commanding officers in person. On the first round 
I did not find General Lee at his quarters, and was told that 
he had ridden down the road to the lines. When I reached 
the lines I heard he had passed out in front. Following him 
up, I found him in the rain with a single piece of horse ar¬ 
tillery, feeling the enemy. My second ride was made largely 
at night, and, as I remember, every officer I desired to see 
was asleep, except at Army Headquarters, where I found 
Colonel Taylor in his tent on his knees, with his prayer-book 
open before him, and General Lee in his tent, wide-awake, 
poring over a map stretched upon a temporary table of rough 
plank, with a tallow candle stuck in a bottle for a light. I re¬ 
member saying to myself, as I delivered my message and 
withdrew, “Does he never, never sleep ?” 

Again General Grant slid to the east, and we moved oft 
upon a parallel line. I think it was during this detour—or 
it may have been an earlier or a later one—that I was sent 
ahead, upon a road which led through a tract of country 


268 


FOUR YEARS UNDER MARSE ROBERT 


which had not been desolated by the encampments or the 
battles of armies, to select a night’s resting place for the bat¬ 
talion. Forests were standing untouched, farm lands were 
protected by fences, crops were green and untrampled, birds 
were singing, flowers blooming—Eden everywhere. Even my 
horse seemed to feel the change from the crowded roads, the 
deadly lines, the dust, the dirt, the mud, the blood, the horror. 
We were passing through a quiet wood at a brisk walk, when 
suddenly he roused himself and quickened his gait, breaking 
of his own accord into a long trot, his beautiful, sensitive 
ears playing back and forth in the unmistakable way which, 
in a fine horse, indicates that he catches sounds interesting 
and agreeable to him. It was, perhaps, several hundred 
yards before we swung around out of the forest into the open 
land where stood a comfortable farm house, and there in a 
sweet and sunny corner were several chubby little children 
chatting and singing at their play. Mickey, dear old Mickey, 
trotted right up to the little people, with low whinnies of 
recognition and delight, and rubbed his head against them. 
They did not seem at all afraid, but pulled nice tufts of 
grass for him, which he ate with evident relish and gratitude. 

If I remember correctly, it was the evening of the same 
day, after Mickey and I had kissed and left the children, and 
I had found a beautiful camping ground for the battalion— 
a succession of little swells of land crowned with pine copses 
and covered with broom-sedge, with a clear, cool stream 
flowing between the hills; and after the batteries were all up 
and located in this soldier paradise—guns parked, horses 
watered and fed and all work done—I say, I think it was 
after all this, that the bugles of each of the batteries blew 
such sweet and happy notes as I never heard from any one 
of them before, and then, while I was lying on the broom- 
sedge, bathing my soul in this peace, and Mickey was brows¬ 
ing near-by, over across the stream, the Howitzer Glee Club 
launched out into a song, the first they had sung since we 
broke camp at Morton’s Ford, three weeks before. 

As the song ceased and the day was fading into the twi¬ 
light, I caught, up the road, the low murmur of conversa¬ 
tion and the rattle of canteens, and following the sound 
with my eye, saw two infantrymen, from a command that 


FROM SPOTTSYLVANIA TO COLD HARBOR 269 

had followed us and camped further back from the stream, 
wending their way to water. Just as they came fully within 
sight and hearing, two of the Howitzer Club struck up 
“What are the Wild Waves Saying?”—one of them, in a 
fine falsetto, taking the sister’s part. As the clear, sweet fe¬ 
male voice floated out on the still evening air my two in¬ 
fantrymen stood transfixed, one putting his hand upon the 
other’s arm and saying with suppressed excitement, “Stop, 
man; there’s a woman!” .They were absolutely silent dur¬ 
ing the singing of the sister’s part, but when the brother 
took up the song they openly wondered whether she would 
sing again. “Yes, there she is; listen, listen!” 

And so, until the song was done, and they had waited, and 
it had become evident she would sing no more—and then a 
deep sigh from both the spell-bound auditors, and one of 
them, making use of the strongest figure he could command, 
exclaimed, from the bottom of a full heart, “Well, it beats a 
furlough hollow!” 

We almost began to hope that Grant had gotten enough. 
Even his apparent, yes, real, success at the Salient did not 
embolden him to attack again at Spottsylvania. He had re¬ 
tired without any serious fighting at Hanover Junction or 
North Anna, and after feeling our position about Atlee’s, 
he had once more slipped away from our front. Where was 
he going? What did he intend to do? Anyone of his prede¬ 
cessors would have retired and given it up long ago. Was 
he about to do so ? 

The fact is, Grant was waiting for reinforcements. He 
had been heavily reinforced at Spottsylvania after the 12th 
of May, but not up to the measure of his desires, or of his 
needs, either; for he really needed more men—and more, 
and more. He needed them, he asked for them, and he got 
them. He had a right to all he wanted. His original con¬ 
tract so provided; it covered all necessary drafts. He want¬ 
ed especially Baldy Smith and his men from the transports, 
and they were coming. They were stretching out hands to 
each other. When they clasped hands, then Grant would at¬ 
tack once more; would make his great final effort. When 
and where would it be ? 


270 FOUR YEARS UNDER MARSE ROBERT 

When Grant slid away from Lee at Atlee’s, we felt satis¬ 
fied that he was, as usual, making for the south and east, so 
Hoke was ordered toward Cold Harbor, and Kershaw (now 
our division general, McLaws never having returned from 
the West) toward Beulah Church. Colonel Cabell received 
orders on the evening of the 31st of May, or early on the 
morning of the 1st of June, to make for the latter point; but 
he was not upon the same road as Kershaw’s division, and 
our orders said nothing about joining it. They seemed to 
contemplate our going by the most direct route, and we went 
—that is, as far as we could. No infantry apparently had re¬ 
ceived any orders to go with us, certainly none went, and 
we soon passed beyond the apparent end of our infantry line, 
at least on the road we were traveling. Very soon we 
reached a stout infantry picket, which I interviewed, and 
they said there were no Confederate troops down that road, 
unless perhaps a few cavalry videttes. 

I was on very intimate terms with my colonel, and I went 
to him and suggested whether there was not danger in our 
proceeding as we were, a battalion of artillery unaccompa¬ 
nied by infantry, out and beyond the last picket post. The 
colonel was a strict constructionist, and he shut me up at 
once by saying: “Stiles, that is the responsibility of the 
general officer who sent me my orders. I am ordered to 
Beulah Church and to Beulah Church I am going. This is 
the nearest road.” I looked up at him in some little surprise, 
but said no more; having fired, I now fell back on my re¬ 
serves, in pretty fair order, but slightly demoralized. 

My reserves were the officers and men of the battalion, all 
of whom I think were fond of me. If I mistake not, Fra¬ 
zier’s battery led the column. I am certain it did a little 
later. Calloway, its commanding officer, to whom we have 
already been introduced, was one of the very best of soldiers, 
as the reader will soon be prepared to admit. He was the 
first man I fell in with as I fell back, Colonel Cabell and little 
Barrett, his courier, being ahead of the column. Calloway 
asked me if I didn’t think we were running some risk, en¬ 
tirely unsupported as we seemed to be, and outside our lines. 
I told him what had occurred, and he smiled grimly. 


FROM SPOTTSYLVANIA TO COLD HARBOR 27 1 

Then I fell back further to the old battery. The column 
was pretty well closed up that morning; everybody seemed 
to feel it well to be so. I was strongly attached to the old 
company and particularly to the captain, who was a magnifi¬ 
cent fellow. It was early on a beautiful summer morning, 
and we were again passing through a tract of undesolated, 
undesecrated country—greenness, quiet, the song of birds, 
the scent of flowers, all about us. Captain McCarthy was 
on foot, walking among his men, his great arms frequently 
around the necks of two of them at once—a position which 
displayed his martial, manly figure to great advantage. I 
dismounted, one of the fellows mounting my horse, and 
walked and talked and chatted with the men, and particu¬ 
larly with the captain. 

He was altogether an uncommon person, marked by great 
simplicity, sincerity, kindliness, courage, good sense, per¬ 
sonal force, and a genius for commanding men. He had 
been rather a reckless, pugnacious boy, difficult to manage, 
impatient of control. The war had proved a real blessing 
to him. It let off the surplus fire and fight. Its deep and 
powerful undertone was just what was needed to harmonize 
his nature. His spirit had really been balanced and gentled 
and sweetened by it. He was not essentially an intellectual 
man, nor yet a man of broad education, and he had under 
him some of the most intellectual and cultivated young men 
I ever met, yet he was easily their leader and commander; 
in the matter of control and for the business in hand, “from 
his shoulders and upward, taller than any of the peopled 
And these intellectual and cultivated men freely recognized 
his supremacy and admired and loved him. He seemed to 
be somewhat subdued and quiet that morning; even more 
than ordinarily affectionate and demonstrative, but not 
cheerful or chatty. Several of us noticed his unusual bear¬ 
ing and speculated as to the cause. 

As the morning wore on and we were leaving our in¬ 
fantry further and further behind, my uneasiness returned; 
and besides, I had been away long enough from the colonel, 
so I remounted and rode forward to the head of the column. 
He had been very emphatic in repelling my suggestions, but 


272 FOUR YEARS UNDER MARSE ROBERT 

1 thought it my duty to renew them, and I did. He was 
even more emphatic than before, saying he had been ordered 
to take that battalion to Beulah Church, and he proposed 
to do it, and he even added that when he wanted any advice 
from me he would ask it. I felt a nearer approach to heat 
than ever before or after, in all my intercourse with my 
friend and commander, and I assured him I would not ob¬ 
trude my advice again. 

I reined in my horse, waiting for Calloway, and rode with 
him at the head of his battery. I had scarcely joined him, 
when Colonels Fairfax and Latrobe, of Longstreet’s staff, 
and Captain Simonton, of Pickett’s, dashed by, splendidly 
mounted, and disappeared in a body of woods but a few 
hundred yards ahead. Hardly had they done so, when pop! 
pop! pop! went a half dozen carbines and revolvers; and a 
moment later the three officers galloped back out of the for¬ 
est, driving before them two or three Federal cavalrymen 
on foot—Simonton leaning over his horse’s head and strik¬ 
ing at them with his riding whip. On the instant I took my 
revenge, riding up to Colonel Cabell, taking off my hat with 
a profound bow, and asking whether it was still his intention 
to push right on to Beulah Church? Meanwhile, Minie 
balls began to drop in on us, evidently fired by sharpshooters 
from a house a short distance to our left and front. The 
Colonel turned toward me with a smile, and said, in a tone 
that took all the sting out of his former words, if any was 
ever intended to be in them: “Yes, you impudent fellow, it 
is my intention, but let’s see how quickly you can drive those 
sharpshooters out of that house!” 

Scarce sooner said than done. I sprang from my horse. 
Calloway’s guns were in battery on the instant, I, by his 
permission, taking charge of his first piece as gunner. Mak¬ 
ing a quick estimate of the distance, I shouted back to No. 6 
at how many seconds to cut the fuse, and the shell reached 
the gun almost as soon as I did. A moment—and the gun was 
loaded, aimed and fired; a moment more and the house burst 
into flame. The shell from the other three guns were ex¬ 
ploded among the retiring skirmishers, who ran back toward 
the woods; while from the side of the house nearest to us 


FROM SPOTTSYLVANIA TO COLD HARBOR 273 

two women came out, one very stout and walking with 
difficulty, the other bearing a baby in her arms and two 
little children following her. Calling to the gunner to 
take charge of his piece, I broke for these women, three or 
four of the men running with me. There was a fence be¬ 
tween us and them that could not have been less than four 
and a half feet high, which I cleared, “hair and hough,” 
while the rest stopped to climb it. I took the baby and 
dragged the youngest child along with me, telling the other 
to come on, and sent the younger woman back to help the 
elder. When the reinforcements arrived we re-arranged 
convoys, I still keeping the baby. By the time we reached the 
battery more of the guns were in action, shelling the woods, 
and I became interested in the firing. The number fives as 
they ran by me with the ammunition would stop a moment 
to pat the baby, who was quite satisfied, and seemed to enjoy 
the racket, cooing and trying to pull my short hair and 
beard. This thing had been going on for several minutes, 
and I had not been conscious of any appeal to me, until one 
of the men ran up, and, pulling me sharply around, pointed 
to the two women, who were standing back down the hill, 
and as far as possible out of the line of the bullets, which 
were still annoying us. There was a rousing laugh and 
cheer as I started back to deliver the little infant artillery¬ 
man to his mother. It turned out that the elder of the two 
women was the mother of the other, and had been bedridden 
for several years. We were exceedingly sorry to have burn¬ 
ed their little house, but some of the boys suggested that if 
the cure of the mother proved permanent, the balance, after 
all, might be considered rather in our favor. 

I do not recall the events of the next few hours with any 
distinctness, or in any orderly sequence, nor how we got 
into connection with our division, Kershaw’s; but we did so 
without serious mishap; so, perhaps, Colonel Cabell may 
have been more nearly right than I after all. The first defi¬ 
nite recollection I have, after what I have just related, is of 
the breaking of Col. Lawrence M. Keitt’s big South Caro¬ 
lina regiment, which had just come to the army and been en¬ 
tered in Kershaw’s old brigade, and probably outnumbered 


18 


274 FOUR YEARS UNDER MARSE ROBERT 

all the balance of that command. General Kershaw had put 
this and another of his brigades into action not far from 
where we had burned the house to dislodge the skirmishers. 
Keitt’s men gave ground, and in attempting to rally them 
their colonel fell mortally wounded. Thereupon the regi¬ 
ment went to pieces in abject rout and threatened to over¬ 
whelm the rest of the brigade. I have never seen any body 
of troops in such a condition of utter demoralization; they 
actually groveled upon the ground and attempted to burrow 
under each other in holes and depressions. Major Goggin, 
the stalwart adjutant-general of the division, was attempt¬ 
ing to rally them, and I did what I could to help him. It 
was of no avail. We actually spurred our horses upon 
them, and seemed to hear their very bones crack, but it did 
no good; if compelled to wriggle out of one hole they wrig¬ 
gled into another. 

So far as I recollect, however, this affair was of no real 
significance. Our other troops stood firm, and we lost no 
ground. I think none of the guns of the battery were en¬ 
gaged. Meanwhile the three divisions of our corps—the 
First, since Longstreet’s wounding, under command of 
Major-General R. H. Anderson—had settled into alignment 
in the following order, beginning from the left: Field, Pick¬ 
ett, Kershaw. On the right of Kershaw’s was Hoke’s 
division, which had been under Beauregard and had joined 
the Army of Northern Virginia only the night before. The 
ground upon which our troops had thus felt and fought their 
way into line was the historic field of Cold Harbor, and the 
day was the first of June, 1864. 

In the afternoon a furious attack was made on the left 
of Hoke and right of Kershaw; and Clingman’s, the left 
brigade of Hoke and Wofford’s, the right brigade of Ker¬ 
shaw gave way, and the Federal troops poured into the gap 
over a marshy piece of ground which had not been properly 
covered by either of these two brigades. Both Field and 
Pickett sent aid to Kershaw, and several of the guns of 
our battalion—I am not sure of which batteries, though I 
think two belonged to the Howitzers, came into battery on 
the edge of a peach orchard which sloped down to the break. 


FROM SPOTTSYLVANIA TO COLD HARBOR 275 

and poured in a hot enfilade fire on the victorious Federals, 
who, after a manly struggle, were driven back, though we 
did not quite regain all we had lost, and our lines were left in 
very bad shape. 

While Wofford was bending back the right of his line to 
connect with Hoke, who, even with the aid sent him, had 
not quite succeeded in regaining his original position, Ker¬ 
shaw’s old brigade, which had more perfectly recovered from 
its little contretemps, was pressing and driving the enemy, 
both advancing and extending its line upon higher and bet¬ 
ter ground, a feat it would never have been able to accom¬ 
plish but for the aid of one of Calloway’s guns, which, under 
command of Lieutenant Robert Falligant, of Savannah, Ga., 
held and carried the right flank of the brigade, coming into 
battery and fighting fiercely whenever the enemy seemed to 
be holding the brigade in check, and limbering up and mov¬ 
ing forward with it, while it was advancing; and this alter¬ 
nate advancing and firing was kept up until a fresh Federal 
force came in and opened fire on the right flank, and all of 
Falligant’s horses fell at the first volley. The enemy made 
a gallant rush for the piece, but they did not get it. It was 
in battery in a moment and belching fire like a volcano, and 
very hot shot, too. The brigade, whose flank it had held, 
now sprang to its defense, and after a furious little fight the 
gun was for the present safe, and everyone began to dig and 
to pile up dirt. 

The brigade did not, however, advance one foot after 
Falligant’s horses were shot; but it was already considerably 
in advance of Wofford’s left, with which it was not con¬ 
nected at all, until the entire line was rectified on the night of 
the 2d—nor was there at any time a Confederate infantry 
soldier to the right of this piece, nor a spadeful of earth, ex¬ 
cept the little traverse we threw up to protect the right of the 
gun. It may just as well be added now that this lone gun 
held the right of Kershaw’s brigade line that evening and 
night—it was getting dark when the extreme advanced posi¬ 
tion was reached—and all the next day, and was moved back 
by hand the night of the 2d of June. I have no hesitation in 
saying that in all my experience as a soldier I never wit- 


2 7 6 FOUR YEARS UNDER MARSE ROBERT 

nessed more gallant action than this of Lieutenant Fal- 
ligant and his dauntless cannoneers, nor do I believe that 
any officer of his rank made a more important contribution 
than he to the success of the Confederate arms in the great 
historic battle. 

Both sides anticipated battle on the 3d, as it really oc¬ 
curred. General Grant in his memoirs says in express terms, 
“The 2d of June was spent in getting troops into position for 
attack on the 3d;” and the “Official Journal” of our corps 
says, under date of June 3d, “The expected battle begins 
early.” This journal also notes the weakness of “Kershaw’s 
Salient,” and that the enemy was aware of it, and was “mass¬ 
ing heavily” in front of it. Three brigades were sent to sup¬ 
port Kershaw—Anderson’s, Gregg’s, and Law’s. We also 
set to work to rectify the lines about this point. Gen. E. M. 
Law, of Alabama, is probably entitled to the credit of this 
suggestion, which had so important a bearing upon our 
success. He laid off the new line with his own hand 
and superintended the construction of it during the night 
of the 2d. The record of the 3d might have been a very dif¬ 
ferent one if this change had not been made. Under Colonel 
Cabell’s instructions and with the aid of the division pioneer 
corps, I opened roads through the woods for the more rapid 
and convenient transmission of artillery ammunition, and 
put up two or three little bridges across ravines with the 
same view. 

While I was superintending this work, the fire at the time 
being lively, I heard someone calling in a most lugubrious 
voice, “Mister, Mister, won’t you please come here!” I 
glanced in the direction of the cry and saw a man stand¬ 
ing behind a large tree in a very peculiar attitude, having 
the muzzle of his musket under his left shoulder and lean¬ 
ing heavily upon it. Supposing he was wounded, I went to 
him and asked what he wanted. He pointed to the butt of 
his gun, under which a large, vigorous, venomous copper¬ 
head snake was writhing; and the wretched skulker actually 
had the face to whine to me, “Won’t you please, sir, kill 
that snake?” I knew not what to say to the creature, and 
fear what I did say was neither a very Christian nor a very 


FROM SPOTTSYLVANIA TO COLD HARBOR 277 

soldierly response; but no one who has not seen a thoroughly 
demoralized man can form the slightest conception of how 
repulsive a thing such a wretch is. 

The headquarters of General Kershaw at Cold Harbor 
was close up to the lines and just back of the position of 
some of our guns. It was but a short distance, too, from 
where the caissons bringing in ammunition turned to the 
right, on a road I had cut, running along the slope of a de¬ 
clivity at the crest of which our guns were stationed, some 
of them before and all of them after the lines were rectified. 
He might have found a safer place, but none nearer the point 
of peril and the working point of everything. The position, 
however, was so exposed that he found himself compelled 
to protect it, which he did by putting up a heavy wall of 
logs, back of which the earth was cut away and pitched over 
against the face, which was toward the lines. His quarters 
were thus cut deep into the hillside, and had besides, above 
the surface and toward the enemy, this wall of logs faced 
with earth. Thus he had a place where he and his officers 
could safely confer and at a very short distance from 
their commands; but it was after all a ghastly place, and very 
difficult and dangerous of approach. All the roads or paths 
leading to it were not only swept by an almost continuous 
and heavy fire of musketry, but I had to keep a force of 
axe-men almost constantly at work cutting away trees felled 
across the ammunition roads by the artillery fire of the 
enemy. Col. Charles S. Venable, reputed to be one of the 
roughest and most daring riders on General Lee's staff,— 
later, professor of mathematics at the University of Virginia, 
and chairman of the faculty,—told me he believed this head¬ 
quarter position of Kershaw’s at Cold Harbor was the 
worst place he was ever sent to. Colonel Cabell was neces¬ 
sarily a great part of the time at these headquarters, and I 
also, when not engaged at some special work, or with some 
of the guns, or on the way from one to another. At Cold 
Harbor these journeys had to be made on foot, and neces¬ 
sarily consumed a good deal of time, an artillery battalion 
frequently covering, say, half a mile of the line. 

Up to the night of the 2d of June, when it was moved 
back, every time Falligant’s gun fired while I was at head- 


278 


FOUR YEARS UNDER MARSE ROBERT 


quarters, General Kershaw would repeat his admiration of 
his courage, and ask me to explain to him again and again 
the isolated and exposed position of the piece, and then he 
would express his determination that Falligant’s gallantry 
and services should receive their merited reward. Once, 
when I happened to be there, a soldier from a South Caro¬ 
lina regiment in Kershaw’s old brigade, one of those sup¬ 
porting Falligant’s gun, came in, reporting that his part of 
the line was almost out of ammunition, and asking that 
some be sent in at once. He may have had a written order, 
but at all events he represented that the case was urgent; 
that they could not trust to getting it into the line at some 
safe point and having it passed along by hand, because it 
would take too long, and besides all the troops were scantily 
supplied and it would never get to his regiment; and lastly, 
because the officer who sent him had ordered him to bring it 
himself. The man was intelligent, self-possessed, and deter¬ 
mined. I well remember, too, how pale and worn and pow¬ 
der-begrimed he looked. He confirmed all I had said as to 
the position and services of Falligant’s gun, and was en¬ 
thusiastic about him and his detachment. 

I told him I was going down there and would help him. 
Boxes of ammunition were piled up in a corner of the cellar, 
as it might be called, in which we were sitting, and we 
knocked the top from one or more, and putting two good, 
strong oilcloths together, poured into them as many cart¬ 
ridges as either of us could conveniently carry at a pretty good 
rate of speed. We then tied up the cloths, making a bag of 
double thickness and having two ends to hold by. Together 
we could run quite rapidly with it, and in case either of us 
should be killed or wounded, the other could get along 
fairly well. We then took the course I had already several 
times taken in reaching the gun—that is, we went down be¬ 
hind Wofford’s left flank, and from that point ran across a 
field covered with scattering sassafras bushes, to a point on 
Kershaw’s line, a little to the left of our gun. This route af¬ 
forded the best protection, but after we left Wofford’s posi¬ 
tion the “protection” amounted to nothing. The sharpshoot¬ 
ers had two-thirds of a circle of fire around the piece, and 


FROM SPOTTSYLVANIA TO COLD HARBOR 279 

they popped merrily at us as we stepped across the field, but 
they never touched either of us; we got in safe and each of us 
“counted a coup ” as the French Canadian trappers used to 
say. 

After shaking hands with the infantry, hearing my plucky 
comrade complimented on his quick and successful trip, and 
seeing the men draw their rations of powder and ball, I made 
my way to the gun, told Bob and his gallant detachment 
what the General had said about them, looked to their forti¬ 
fication and ammunition, and was just about to take the 
perilous trip back again when the enemy began to press us in 
a very determined way. There was heavy timber imme¬ 
diately in front, and their mode of attack was to thicken a 
skirmish line into a line of battle behind the trees, and then 
try to rush us at very short range. The infantry ammuni¬ 
tion had been replenished just in time, but it must be remem¬ 
bered there was not an infantry soldier to our right. If the 
woods had been as close upon us in that direction they would 
undoubtedly have captured the piece, but they did not relish 
coming out into the open. 

I was struck with the splendid fighting spirit of Campbell, 
the tall, lean, keen-eyed, black-haired gunner of the piece; 
but he was entirely too reckless, standing erect except when 
bending over the handspike in sighting the piece, and not 
much “sighting” is done at such short range. Every time 
the gun belched its deadly contents into the woods Camp¬ 
bell would throw his glengary or fez cap around his head 
and yell savagely. I cautioned him again and again, re¬ 
minding him that the other men of the detachment were 
fighting, and fighting effectively, on their hands and knees. 
When his commanding officer or I ordered him to “get 
down” he would do so for a moment, but spring up again 
when the gun fired. Suddenly I heard the thud of a Minie 
striking a man, and Campbell's arms flew up as he fell back¬ 
ward, ejaculating, “Oh, God! I’m done forever!” We lift¬ 
ed the poor fellow around, across the face of the little work, 
under the mouth of the piece, and Falligant kneeled by him 
and pressed his finger where the blood was spouting, while 
I took the gunner’s place at the trail. Every time the gun 


28 o 


FOUR YEARS UNDER MARSE ROBERT 


was discharged I noticed how Campbell’s face—which was 
almost directly under the bellowing muzzle—was contorted, 
but he urged me to keep up the fire, until finally, observing a 
sort of lull in the fight, I proposed to cease firing and note the 
effect, and the poor fellow said brokenly, “Well, if you think 
it’s safe, Adjutant!” Then he added, “Tell my mother I died 
like a soldier”—and he was gone. 

During this flurry one of the enemy bounded over the 
work and landed right in among us; but he ran on toward 
the rear and brought up in a sitting posture on a pile of 
earth one of the infantry had thrown out of a hole he had 
dug to cook in—a sort of safety-kitchen. The man’s back 
was turned toward us, his elbows were on his knees, and his 
head sunk in his hands. After Campbell’s death, as he was 
still sitting there, thinking he must be wounded, I proposed 
to one of the men to run out with me and bring him back into 
the work. We tried it, but he cast off our hands and we had 
to leave him to his fate. In a few moments he was shot in 
the head and tumbled in upon the cook in the kitchen—dead. 

The 2d of June, 1864, was the heaviest, the hardest-work¬ 
ed and the most straining day of my life. Not only did I 
have my ordinary duties of a day of battle to perform, but I 
had, in addition, to open and to keep open roads for getting 
in ammunition, to bridge two or three ravines, to visit Fal- 
ligant’s gun several times and to keep it supplied with am¬ 
munition, which had to be passed along the infantry line by 
hand for quite a long distance. When night came I believe I 
was more nearly wornout than on any other occasion during 
the entire war. Colonel Cabell insisted I should go back to 
our headquarters camp, which was about midway between the 
lines and the drivers’ camp, and sleep; and, in view of what 
impended on the morrow, I consented to do so. But first, 
and just before dark, I took Calloway over all the obscure 
and confusing part of the road to Falligant’s gun, the 
road by which he was to bring it out later. I omitted to say 
that General Kershaw highly approved our determination to 
save that piece, if at all possible. I greatly disliked not go¬ 
ing with the party to fetch the gun out, but Calloway and 
everyone concerned insisted that I must not think of attempt- 


FROM SPOTTSYLVANIA TO COLD HARBOR 


28 l 


ing it, fearing that I would utterly give way if I did so. So 
I yielded, and after showing and explaining everything to 
Calloway, I went back to camp and laid down. 

I had scarcely gotten to sleep when I had to get up to pilot 
an officer who had important orders for General Kershaw, 
and had been unable to find his headquarters. Once more I 
stretched out and dozed off. How long I dozed or slept I 
cannot say, but I was awakened by Calloway bending over 
me and saying, “Adjutant, I never was so sorry about any¬ 
thing, but in those woods it is now as dark as Erebus! No¬ 
body but yourself can find and keep the road you showed me, 
and I don’t believe even you can do it.” 

The noble fellow was evidently much mortified and trou¬ 
bled at being compelled to rouse me, but he well knew I had 
much rather this should be done than that the chance of sav¬ 
ing the gun should be abandoned. So I got up and mounted 
Mickey, and off we started. 

It was very dark. Just before reaching the point where 
the road turned to the right along the slope of the hill, we 
found the gun horses and drivers, Calloway and I passing 
and directing them to follow us, and to keep absolutely quiet. 
I experienced little difficulty in finding the road, having 
superintended the cutting of it and being very familiar with 
it, and we passed on over the little bridge, and were just 
passing out from behind Wofford’s left flank and heading 
for Kershaw’s line, when someone seized my bridle rein and 
abruptly stopped my horse; at the same time asking who I 
was and what I intended to do, and what I meant by bring¬ 
ing artillery horses through his lines without his permission. 

The manner and tone of this address was irritating, but 
suspecting who my interlocutor was and knowing something 
of his temperament, I answered quietly that I was adjutant of 
Cabell’s Battalion of Artillery, and that the commanding of¬ 
ficer of one of our batteries was with me; that the gun out 
there, which had protected this part of the line all day, be¬ 
longed to his battery; that we proposed to save it, and that 
we had brought the horses for the purpose of hauling it off. 
I could see nothing, but by this time my suspicion had be¬ 
come conviction and I felt sure I was talking with General 


282 


FOUR YEARS UNDER MARSE ROBERT 


Wofford. He positively forbade the attempt, and did not 
seem disposed to yield until my cousin, Col. Edward Stiles, 
of the Sixteenth Georgia, of his brigade, who knew the Gen¬ 
eral well, joined us and suggested as a compromise that we 
should make the attempt without taking the horses any fur¬ 
ther; to which I agreed, upon condition that he would fur¬ 
nish me with, say twenty men, to get the gun off by hand, 
and that in the event of their failing I should then make 
the effort with the horses, as we had General Kershaw’s 
positive orders to save the gun if possible. 

We got the men and started up the hill, leaving drivers 
and horses to await our return. It was now absolutely dark. 
I remember putting my hand before my face and being un¬ 
able to see it. Calloway and I rode side by side, inclining 
to the left, so as to guard against running out into the enemy 
through the gap in the lines. There was absolute silence, 
save the soft tread of our horses’ feet in the sandy soil. In 
a few moments their heads rustled against dry leaves—the 
leafy screen which the troops had put up to protect them¬ 
selves from the baking sun. We knew we were at the in¬ 
fantry line and turned to the right and toward the gun. 
There was a good deal of smoke in the air from the woods 
afire out in front, and we soon became conscious of an in¬ 
sufferable odor of burning flesh. My horse being a rapid 
walker, I kept a little ahead of Calloway, and very soon was 
stopped again, by someone who spoke almost in a stage 
whisper. It turned out to be the commanding officer of Ker¬ 
shaw’s old brigade, and he, too, forbade our attempt and or¬ 
dered us back; but the direct authority of his major-general 
satisfied him, and he begged only that we should wait until 
his men could be thoroughly roused and ready to resist any 
attack that might be made; adding that the poor fellows 
were utterly exhausted by the unrelieved strain of the past 
thirty-six hours. All true; yet it was fearful to contemplate 
the risk they ran in sleeping. The colonel told us, too, what 
we already suspected, that the odor which so offended our 
nostrils was that of human bodies roasting in the forest fires 
in front. We plainly heard the officers passing along the 
lines and rousing the men, and we feared the enemy heard it, 


FROM SPOTTSYLVANIA TO COLD HARBOR 283 

too; but preferred this risk to that of a sudden rush upon a 
slumbering brigade just as we were drawing the gun off. 

Soon after we started again, my horse snorted and sprang 
aside. I knew this meant we had reached the dead horses, 
and told Calloway we were almost upon the gun. He dis¬ 
mounted, handing his bridle rein to me, and I heard him 
enter the little trench and feel and fumble his way along it 
for a few steps, and then heard him call, in a low tone, 
“Falligant, Falligant! ,, Then I heard the sort of groan or 
grumble a tired man gives out when he is half roused from 
a sound sleep, and after that a low hum of conversation. 
Then Calloway came up out of the trench, and, groping his 
way to me, said: “Adjutant, do you know every man in 
that detachment was fast asleep and the enemy is lying 
down in line of battle between here and that low fire out 
there!” I said he must be mistaken, that I could toss a 
cracker into that fire. He insisted he was right and urged 
me to dismount and go into the trench and stoop till I could 
see under the smoke. I did so, and there, sure enough, was a 
continuous line of blue which the flickering of the flames 
beyond enabled me to see. My heart stopped beating at the 
sight, but this was no time for indulgence of over-sensibility, 
physical or emotional. 

As quietly and rapidly as possible we got everything ready 
for fight or retreat. Our twenty men had brought their mus¬ 
kets and Kershaw’s brigade was up in the trench and on their 
knees. The gun was backed out of the little work, limbered 
up, and the ammunition chest replaced; some of the men 
took hold of the wheels and some of the tongue, and the 
piece was soon moving after us almost noiselessly, along the 
sassafras field toward Wofford’s line. In a few moments 
we reached the goal, returning our thanks to the General, 
and to my cousin and the sturdy, gallant men they lent us; 
the horses were hitched up and we were rolling over the little 
bridges and up to the new line and the position selected for 
this now distinguished piece. 

I trust I am not small enough to indulge in any vulgar 
pride in my part of the trying experiences of this day; yet I 
scarce recall another day for which I so thank God, or which 


284 


FOUR YEARS UNDER MARSE ROBERT 


has had a greater influence on my life. Often, when depressed 
and disposed to question .whether there is, or ever was, in me 
the salt of a real manhood, I have looked back to the first 
three days of June, 1864, and felt the revival of a saving 
self-respect and the determination not to do or suffer any¬ 
thing unworthy of this heroic past of which I was a part. 


CHAPTER XXI 


COLD HARBOR OF ’64. 

The Great Fight of June 3d—Unparalleled in Brevity, in Slaughter, and 
in Disproportion of Loss—Grant Assaults in Column, or in Mass— 
His Troops Refuse to Renew the Attack—Effect at the North—Con¬ 
federate “Works” in the Campaign of ’64—The Lines—Sharpshoot¬ 
ing—The Covered Way—The Spring—Death of Captain McCarthy, 
of the Howitzers—How It Occurred on the Lines—How It Was Re¬ 
ceived in the City—My Brother Loses an Eye—“Alone in the 
World”—A Last Look at the Enemy—Buildings Felled and Scat¬ 
tered by Artillery—Gun Wheels Cut Down by Musketry—Bronze 
Guns Splotched and Pitted Like Smallpox—Epitome of the Cam¬ 
paign of ‘64—Maneuvering of No Avail Against Lee’s Army—Did 
That Army Make Lee, or Lee That Army? 

There were two battles at Cold Harbor, one in ’62 and 
one in ’64. In ’62 the Confederates attacked and drove the 
Federals from their position; in ’64 the Federals attacked, 
but were repulsed with frightful slaughter. It is undis¬ 
puted that both McClellan’s army and Grant’s outnumbered 
Lee’s,—Grant’s overwhelmingly,—and it is asserted that the 
position occupied by the Federals in ’62 and the Confederates 
in ’64 was substantially the same. 

We were in line of battle at Cold Harbor of ’64 from the 
1st to the 12th of June—say twelve days; the battle proper 
did not last perhaps that many minutes. In some respects, 
at least, it was one of the notable battles of history—cer¬ 
tainly in its brevity measured in time, and its length meas¬ 
ured in slaughter—as also in the disproportion of the losses. 
A fair epitome of it in these respects would be that in a few 
moments more than thirteen thousand men were killed and 
wounded on the Federal side and less than thirteen hundred 
on the Confederate. As to the time consumed in the conflict, 
the longest duration assigned is sixty minutes and the short¬ 
est less than eight. For my own part, I could scarcely say 
whether it lasted eight or sixty minutes, or eight or sixty 


286 


FOUR YEARS UNDER MARSE ROBERT 


hours—to such a degree were all my powers concentrated 
upon the one point of keeping the guns fully supplied with 
ammunition. 

The effect of the fighting was not at all appreciated on 
the Confederate side at the time. Why we did not at least 
suspect it, when the truce was asked and granted to allow 
the removal of the Federal dead and wounded, I cannot say, 
although I went myself with the officers on our side, detailed 
to accompany them, on account of my familiarity with the 
lines. I presume the ignorance, and even incredulity, of our 
side as to the overwhelming magnitude of the Federal losses 
resulted from two causes mainly—our own loss was so 
trivial, so utterly out of proportion, and the one character¬ 
istic feature of the fight on the Federal side was not then 
generally known or appreciated by us, namely, that Grant 
had attacked in column, in phalanx, or in mass. The record 
of the Official Diary of our corps (Southern Historical So¬ 
ciety Papers, Vol. VII., p. 503), under date of June 3, 1864, 
is very peculiar and is in part in these words: “Meantime 
the enemy is heavily massed in front of Kershaw’s salient. 
Anderson’s, Law’s, and Gregg’s brigades are there to sup¬ 
port Kershaw. Assault after assault is made, and each time 
repulsed with severe loss to the enemy. At eight o’clock 
A. M., fourteen had been made and repulsed (this means, I 
suppose, fourteen lines advanced)” 

This is obviously a hurried field note by one officer, cor¬ 
rected later by another, in accordance with the facts known 
to the writer, that is, to the officer who made the later note, 
but not generally known at the time to the public. We sup¬ 
pose, however, it will to-day be admitted by all that there 
was but one attack upon Kershaw up to eight A. M., and 
that at that hour the order was issued to the Federal troops 
to renew the attack, but they failed to advance; that this 
order was repeated in the afternoon, when the troops again 
refused to obey, and that at least some of Grant’s corps 
generals approved of this refusal of their men to repeat the 
useless sacrifice. 

Here, then, is the secret of the otherwise inexplicable and 
incredible butchery. A little after daylight on June 3, 1864, 


COLD HARBOR OF ’64. 


287 

along the lines of Kershaw’s salient, his infantry discharged 
their bullets and his artillery fired case-shot and double- 
shotted canister, at very short range, into a mass of men 
twenty-eight (28) deep, who could neither advance nor re¬ 
treat, and the most of whom could not even discharge their 
muskets at us. We do not suppose that the general outline 
of these facts will be denied to-day, but it may be as well to 
confirm the essential statement by a brief extract from Swin- 
ton’s “Army of the Potomac,” p. 487: 

The order was issued through these officers to their subordinate com¬ 
manders, and from them descended through the wonted channels, but 
no man stirred and the immobile lines pronounced a verdict, silent, yet 
emphatic, against further slaughter. The loss on the Union side in this 
sanguinary action was over thirteen thousand, while on the part of the 
Confederates it is doubtful whether it reached that many hundreds. 

To like effect, as to the amount and the disproportion of 
the carnage, is the statement of Colonel Taylor, on page 135 
of his book, that: 

I well recall having received a report after the assault from General 
Hoke—whose division reached the army just previous to this battle—to 
the effect that the ground in his entire front over which the enemy had 
charged was literally covered with their dead and wounded; and that 
up to that time he had not had a single man killed. 

So much for the amount, the disproportion, and the cause 
of the slaughter. A word now as to the effect of it upon 
the Federal leaders and the Northern people. Is it too much 
to say that even Grant’s iron nerve was for the time shattered? 
Not that he would not have fought again if his men would, 
but they would not. Is it not true that he so informed Presi¬ 
dent Lincoln; that he asked for another army; that, not get¬ 
ting it, or not getting it at once, he changed his plan of cam¬ 
paign from a fighting to a digging one ? Is it reasonable to 
suppose that when he attacked at the Bloody Angle or at 
Cold Harbor, he really contemplated the siege of Petersburg 
and regarded those operations as merely preparatory? Is 
it not true that, years later, Grant said—looking back over 


288 


FOUR YEARS UNDER MARSE ROBERT 


his long career of bloody fights—that Cold Harbor was the 
only battle he ever fought that he would not fight over again 
under the same circumstances ? Is it not true that when first 
urged, as President, to remove a certain Democratic office¬ 
holder in California, and later, when urged to give a reason 
for his refusal, he replied that the man had been a standard- 
bearer in the Army of the Potomac, and that he would— 
allow something very unpleasant to happen to him—before 
he would remove the only man in his army who even at¬ 
tempted to obey his order to attack a second time at Cold 
Harbor? Is it not true that General Meade said the Con¬ 
federacy came nearer to winning recognition at Cold Harbor 
than at any other period during the war? Is it not true 
that, after Grant’s telegram, the Federal Cabinet resolved at 
least upon an armistice, and that Mr. Seward was selected to 
draft the necessary papers, and Mr. Swinton to prepare the 
public mind for the change? And finally, even if none of 
these things be true, exactly as propounded—yet is it not 
true, that Cold Harbor shocked and depressed the Federal 
Government and the Northern public more than any other 
single battle of the war ? 

A few words as to some of the prominent features, phy¬ 
sical and otherwise, of fighting in “the lines,” as we began 
regularly to do in this campaign of ’64, particularly at Cold 
Harbor. Something of this is necessary to a proper under¬ 
standing and appreciation of some of the incidents that oc¬ 
curred there. And first, as to “the works” of which I have 
so often spoken. What were they ? I cannot answer in any 
other way one-half so well as by the following vivid quota¬ 
tion from my friend Willy Dame’s “Reminiscences,” already 
referred to. Says Mr. Dame: 

Just here I take occasion to correct a very wrong impression about the 
field works the Army of Northern Virginia fought behind in this cam¬ 
paign. All the Federal writers who have written about these battles 
speak about our works as “formidable earthworks,” “powerful fortifi¬ 
cations,” “impregnable lines;” such works as no troops could be expected 
to take and any troops should be expected to hold. 

Now about the parts of the line distant from us, I couldn’t speak so 
certainly—though I am sure they were all very much the same—but 


COLD HARBOR OF ’64 


289 

about the works all along our part of the line I can speak with exactness 
and certainty. I saw them, I helped with my own hands to make them, 
I fought behind them, I was often on top of them and both sides of them. 
I know all about them. I got a good deal of the mud off them on me 
(not for purposes of personal fortification, however). Our works were 
a single line of earth about four feet high and three to five feet thick. It 
had no ditch or obstruction in front. It was nothing more than a little 
heavier line of “rifle pits.” There was no physical difficulty in men 
walking right over that bank. I did it often myself, saw many others do 
it, and twice saw a line of Federal troops walk over it, and then saw 
them walk back over it with the greatest ease, at the rate of forty miles 
an hour; i. e. except those whom we had persuaded to stay with us, and 
those the angels were carrying to Abraham’s bosom at a still swifter rate. 
Works they could go over like that couldn’t have been much obstacle! 
They couldn’t have made better time on a dead level. 

Such were our works actually, and still they seemed to “loom large” 
to the people in front. I wonder what could have given them such an 
exaggerated idea of the strength of those modest little works! I wonder 
if it could have been the men behind them! There wasn’t a great many 
of these men! It was a very thin gray line along them, back of a thin 
red line of clay. But these lines stuck together, very hard, and were 
very hard indeed to separate. The red clay was “sticky” and the men 
were just as “sticky,” and as the two lines “stuck” together so closely, it 
made the whole very strong indeed. Certainly it seems they gave to 
those who tried to force them apart an impression of great strength. 

Yes, it must have been the men! A story in point comes to my aid here. 
A handsome, well dressed lady sweeps with a great air past two street 
boys. They are much struck. “My eye, Jim, but ain’t that a stunning 
dress?” Says Jim with a superior air. “O get out, Bill, the dress ain’t 
no great shakes; it’s the woman in it that makes it so killing!” That was 
the way with the Spottsylvania earthworks. The “works wa’n’t no great 
shakes.” It was the men in ’em that made them so “killing.” 

The men behind those works, such as they were, had perfect confidence 
in their own ability to hold them. And this happy combination of “faith” 
and “works” proved as strong against the world and the flesh as it does 
against the devil. It was perfectly effectual, it withstood all assaults. 

The original intent of such “works” is to afford protec¬ 
tion against regular attack by the full line of battle of the 
opposite side, advancing out of their works to attack yours. 
This, of course, everyone understands. But this is only an 
occasional and comparatively rare thing. The constant and 
wearing feature of “the lines” is the sharpshooting, which 


19 


290 


FOUR YEARS UNDER MARSE ROBERT 


never ceases as long as there is light enough to see how to 
shoot; unless the skirmishers or sharpshooters of the two 
sides proclaim, or in some way begin, a temporary truce, as I 
have known them to do. I have also known them to give ex¬ 
plicit warning of the expiration of such a truce. 

Sharpshooting, at best, however, is a fearful thing. The 
regular sharpshooter often seemed to me little better than a 
human tiger lying in wait for blood. His rifle is frequently 
trained and made fast bearing upon a particular spot,— 
for example, where the head of a gunner must of necessity 
appear when sighting his piece,—and the instant that object 
appears and, as it were, “darkens the hole,” crash goes a 
bullet through his brain. 

The consequence of the sharpshooting is the “covered¬ 
way,” which, when applied to these rough and ready tempo¬ 
rary lines, means any sort of protection—trenches, ditches, 
traverses, piles of earth, here and there, at what have proved 
to be the danger points, designed and placed so as to protect 
as far as possible against the sharpshooters. Only in regular 
and elaborate lines of “siege,” such as we had later about 
Petersburg, is seen the more perfect protection of regularly 
covered galleries and ways for passing from one part of the 
line to another inside; just as, outside and on the face toward 
the enemy, such elaborate and permanent lines of works are 
protected by ditches, abattis or felled trees, friezes or sharp¬ 
ened stakes, to make the “works” more difficult of approach, 
of access, and of capture. 

One can readily understand, now, the supreme discomfort 
and even suffering of “the lines.” Thousands of men 
cramped up in a narrow trench, unable to go out, or to get 
up, or to stretch or to stand without danger to life and limb; 
unable to lie down, or to sleep, for lack of room and pressure 
of peril; night alarms, day attacks, hunger, thirst, supreme 
weariness, squalor, vermin, filth, disgusting odors every¬ 
where; the weary night succeeded by the yet more weary 
day; the first glance over the way, at day dawn, bringing the 
sharpshooter’s bullet singing past your ear or smashing 
through your skull, a man’s life often exacted as the price of 
a cup of water from the spring. But I will not specify or 


COLD HARBOR OF ’64 


291 


elaborate further; only, upon the canvas thus stretched, let 
me paint for you two or three life and death pictures of Cold 
Harbor of '64. 

The reader may recall our “Old Doctor,” the chief of our 
ambulance corps, who helped to rally the Texans and Geor¬ 
gians on the 10th of May at Spottsylvania, first exhorting 
them as “gentlemen,” then berating and belaboring them as 
“cowards.” No man who was ever in the Howitzers but will 
appreciate the grim absurdity of this man’s feeling a lack of 
confidence in his own nerve and courage; but he did feel it. 
When the war broke out he was in Europe enjoying him¬ 
self, but returned to his native State, serving first in some, 
as he considered it, “non-combatant” position, until that be¬ 
came unendurable to him, and then he joined the Howitzers 
as a private soldier; and that final flurry of the 10th of May 
was the first real fight he ever got into. Hearing someone 
say just as it was over that it had been “pretty hot work,” he 
asked with the greatest earnestness whether the speaker 
really meant what he said, and when assured that he did, he 
asked two or three others of his comrades, whom he regarded 
as experienced soldiers, whether they concurred in this view 
of the matter, and on their expressing emphatic concur¬ 
rence, he expressed intense satisfaction at having at last a 
standard in his mind, and a relieving standard at that; say¬ 
ing that he had feared he would disgrace his family by ex¬ 
hibiting a lack of courage; but if this was really “hot work,” 
he felt that he would be able to maintain himself and do his 
duty. The story is almost too much for belief, but it is the 
sober truth and vouched for by gentlemen of the highest 
character. 

I think it was the evening after the big fight at Cold Har¬ 
bor that I was sitting in the works, with one of the Howitzer 
detachments, when the Doctor announced his intention of 
going to the spring for water. I reminded him that it was 
not quite dark and the sharpshooters would be apt to pay 
their respects to him; but he said he must have some water, 
and offered to take down and fill as many canteens as he 
could carry. His captain was present and I said no more. 
He was soon loaded up and started off, stepping right up out 


292 FOUR YEARS UNDER MARSE ROBERT 

of the trench on the level ground. I could not help urging 
him to take the “covered way,” but he replied, “I can’t do 
it, Adjutant. It is dirty; a gentleman can’t walk in it, sir.” 

Away he went, walking bolt upright and with entire non¬ 
chalance, down the hill; to my great relief reaching the 
spring in safety, where he was pretty well protected. In due 
time he started back, loaded with the full canteens and hav¬ 
ing a tin cup full of water in his right hand. I heard the sharp 
report of a rifle and saw the Doctor start forward or stumble, 
and sprang up to go to his relief, but he steadied himself and 
came right on up the hill without further attention from the 
sharpshooters, and stepped down into the work. As he did 
so he handed the captain the cup of water, in the quietest 
manner apologizing for having spilled part of it, adding that 
he had met with a trivial accident. The upper joint of his 
thumb had been shot away, yet he had not dropped the cup. 
Then he turned to me and asked my pardon for his dis¬ 
regard of my warning and his imprudence in getting shot, 
protesting still, however, that it was very hard indeed for a 
gentleman to walk in those filthy, abominable covered ways. 

The spring was perhaps the point of greatest power and 
pathos in all the weird drama of “The Lines.” About this 
date, or very soon after, a few of us were sitting in the part 
of the trenches occupied by the Twenty-first Mississippi, of 
our old brigade,—Barksdale’s, now Humphreys’,—which 
was supporting our guns. There had been a number of Yale 
men in the Twenty-first—the Sims, Smiths, Brandon, Scott, 
and perhaps others. A good many were “gone,” and those 
of us who were left were talking of them and of good times 
at Old Yale, when someone said, “Scott, isn’t it your turn to 
go to the spring?” “Yes,” said Scott, submissively, “I be¬ 
lieve it is. Pass up your canteens,” and he loaded up and 
started out. There was a particularly exposed spot on the 
way to water, which we had tried in vain to protect more 
perfectly, and we heard, as usual, two or three rifle shots 
as Scott passed that point. In due time we heard them 
again as he returned, and one of the fellows said, “Ha! 
they are waking up old Scott, again, on the home stretch.” 

The smile had not died upon our faces when a head ap¬ 
peared above the traverse and a business-like voice called: 


COLD HARBOR OF ’64 


2 93 


“Hello, Company I; man of yours dead out here!” We ran 
around the angle of the work, and there lay poor Scott, 
prone in the ditch and almost covered with canteens. We 
picked him up and bore him tenderly into the trench, and, as 
we laid him down and composed his limbs, manly tears 
dropped upon his still face. Each man disengaged and took 
his own canteen from the slumbering water-carrier. We 
did not “pour the water out to the Lord,” as David did when 
the “three mightiest brake through the host of the Philistines 
and drew water out of the well of Bethlehem that was by the 
gate”—albeit, in a truer sense than David spoke, this water 
was the very “blood of this man.” 

It was about six o’clock in the evening of one of the days 
that followed close upon the great fight that there befell the 
company the very saddest loss it had yet experienced. An 
order had come to Captain McCarthy, from General Alex¬ 
ander, commanding the artillery corps, directing that the 
effect of the fire of several howitzers, which were operating 
as mortars, from a position immediately back of the Howit¬ 
zer guns, should be carefully observed and reported to him. 
The captain, appreciating at once the responsibility and the 
peril of the work, with characteristic chivalry, determined to 
divide it between himself and one of the most competent and 
careful men in the company. Pie was not the man to shrink, 
or slur over, or postpone his own part in any duty, and im¬ 
mediately stationed himself where he could thoroughly dis¬ 
charge it. He had taken his stand but a few moments when 
he fell back among his men, his brain pierced by a sharp¬ 
shooter’s bullet. The detachment sprang to his aid, but too 
late even to prevent his fall. His broad breast heaved once 
or twice as they knelt about him, and it was all over. The 
men broke down utterly and sobbed like children. 

We never found his hat. While his boys were still gaz¬ 
ing at him through their tears a Mississippi soldier came 
working his way along the lines, from a point some one 
hundred feet or more to the right, holding in his hand a little 
piece of brass, and as he approached the group said: “This 
here thing has just fell at my feet. I reckon it belongs to 
some of you artillery fellows;” and then, looking at the 


294 FOUR YEARS UNDER MARSE ROBERT 

noble figure stretched upon the ground, he asked in the dry, 
matter-of-fact soldier style, “Who's that's dead?" When 
we told him Captain McCarthy, of the Howitzers, he said 
musingly: “McCarthy, McCarthy; why, that's the name 
of the folks that took care o’ me, when I was wounded so 
bad last year. Well, here's the cannons from his hat." And 
so it was; his hat, as we suppose, had gone over the works, 
and his badge of cross cannon, dislodged from it by the 
shock, had fallen at the feet of a man who had been nursed 
back to life by his mother and sisters in his boyhood's home. 

In a few moments his men bore him to where he could be 
placed in an ambulance, and then all, save his cousin, Dan, 
afterwards Lieutenant McCarthy, who went into Richmond 
with his body, turned back to the lines with such choking of 
grief and heaviness of heart as they had never before felt. 

It is seldom a man is so beloved or so deserves to be. I 
can truly say I never heard him utter an evil word con¬ 
cerning anyone, and never heard from anyone either adverse 
criticism or complaint of him. A day or two before, on that 
very spot, he had shown what a true hero he was. Just 
after the great repulse, and while a fearful fire was pouring 
upon us from the Federal batteries and such of their as¬ 
saulting infantry as had succeeded in reaching their own 
works, a poor wretch, who had fallen just outside our 
works, was shrieking for help. The captain, deeply stirred, 
cried: “Boys, I can’t stand this. I don’t order any of you 
to accompany me; but, as I can’t well manage him alone, I 
call for one volunteer to go with me and bring in that poor 
fellow." Several volunteered, but Sergeant, afterwards 
Lieutenant, Moncure said, “You can’t go, boys; I am chief 
of this piece," and he and the captain went right over the 
works, and, picking up the man, brought him back inside, 
but he was dead before they laid him down. He had been 
killed by the fire of his own friends. 

Such was death upon the lines; but let me show what all 
this meant to the people at home. General Kershaw very 
willingly furnished Dan an ambulance and a man from his 
old brigade to drive it, and the two started on their melan¬ 
choly journey. Counting the necessary turn-outs in the road, 


COLD HARBOR OF ’64 


95 


which was badly cut up by army wagons, they had some 
twelve or thirteen miles to travel, and it must have been 
after seven o’clock before they started. Meanwhile, at the 
captain’s father’s home, in the northern part of the city, 
were his mother and sisters, his father, an aged man, suffer¬ 
ing from a disease which had robbed him of the power of 
speech and forced him to breathe through a tube, and a 
younger brother, under military age, who was his father’s 
constant attendant and nurse, and who slept with him at 
night. This brother was roused that night from his first nap 
by loud shouts on the street and a rough, startling, disa¬ 
greeable noise made, as he thought, by running a stout stick 
backwards and forwards across the wooden palings of the 
front fence. Going to the window the lad hesitated for a 
moment to throw up the sash, the streets of a beleaguered 
city at night being, of course, not entirely free from prowlers 
and disorder. What he saw was a man holding a horse, 
from which he had evidently just dismounted, and who had 
been making these noises for the purpose of rousing the 
people in the house. As the sash went up the man said: 
“Captain McCarthy was killed on the lines awhile ago. If 
you want his body you had better send for it to-night, or 
it may be buried on the field.” As he said this he remounted 
and was gone. 

The house was instantly in a turmoil, but the inmates soon 
recovered reasonable balance, and in a short time the lad was 
off after a horse and wagon for the sad errand. At first he 
could not think where he might get one, but it soon occurred 
to him that he had seen upon the streets within a few days 
a new wagon of “John and George Gibson, Builders,” and 
he went to Mr. George Gibson’s house and waked him. Upon 
hearing the sad news, Mr. Gibson kindly consented not only 
to let him have the wagon, but to go with him to the lines. 
He added, however, that the horse and vehicle were kept at 
a considerable distance from his house and that, as the 
night threatened to be stormy, young McCarthy had better 
go home and get some proper wraps and protections and 
meet him at an appointed place and time. As the boy reach¬ 
ed home, or soon after, an ambulance drove up to the door 


296 FOUR YEARS UNDER MARSE ROBERT 

and his Cousin Dan and the South Carolina soldier bore 
the captain’s body into the house. As soon as they had de¬ 
posited it and helped the family to arrange it as they desired, 
Dan kissed his uncle, aunt, and cousins, and was bidding 
them good-by, when the old gentleman made signs for him 
to remain a moment and asked for pencil and paper. When 
these were given him he wrote just these words and handed 
them to Dan—“Since it was God’s will to take him, I am 
glad he died at his post.” 

Dan was back at his post by daylight, and sent word to 
the captain’s two brothers, who were in another corps, when 
he would be buried. These young men walked into town, 
attended the funeral, and walked out again to their posts the 
same night, and in a very short time the lad who had been 
his father’s nurse was regularly mustered into the company 
to which his elder brothers belonged. Such was death, and 
also life, in the devoted city back of the lines. 

My younger brother was a great favorite in the company. 
As before stated, he had been a sailor, and as we had come 
from New England to Virginia, he was nicknamed “Skip¬ 
per.” He had a beautiful tenor voice and a unique repertoire 
of songs from almost every clime and country. Whenever 
“Skipper” deigned to sing, “the Professor,” the trainer of 
the Glee Club, would enforce absolute silence throughout the 
camp, under penalty of a heavy battery of maledictions. 

The day after Captain McCarthy’s death, my brother, be¬ 
ing in almost the exact position the captain occupied when 
killed, was shot in the left temple, and fell just where the 
captain had fallen. I was not present at the moment, but 
the boys reported that as they bent over him, thinking him 
dead, he raised his head and said, “If you fellows will stand 
back and give me some air, I’ll get up!”—which he not only 
did, but walked out to the hospital camp, refusing a litter. He 
also refused to take chloroform, and directed the surgeons in 
exploring the track of the ball, which had crushed up his 
temple and the under half of the socket of his eye, and lodged 
somewhere in behind his nose. After they had extracted the 
ball and a great deal of crushed bone, he declared there was 
something else in his head which must come out. The sur- 


COLD HARBOR OF ’64 


297 


geons told him it was more crushed bone which would come 
away of itself after awhile; but he insisted it was something 
that did not belong there, and that they must take it away 
immediately. They remonstrated, but he would not be satis¬ 
fied, and finally they probed further and drew out a piece of 
his hat brim, cut just the width of the ball and jammed like 
a wad into his head; after that he was much easier. I 
omitted to say we never found his hat, either. 

He was blind in the left eye from the moment the ball 
struck him, and became for a time blind in the other eye also. 
While in utter darkness he sang most of the time, and I re¬ 
member our dear mother was troubled by a fancy that, like 
a mocking bird she once had that went blind in a railroad 
train, he might sing himself to death. But he recovered the 
sight of his right eye after a time, and the marvel is that the 
left eye did not shrink away and was not even discolored. 
The bony formation of the under-socket of the eye grew up 
and rectified itself almost entirely, and a lock of his curly 
hair covered the desperate-looking wound in the temple. It 
was a wonderful recovery. 

There was a gunner in Calloway’s battery named Allen 
Moore, a backwoods Georgian and a simple-hearted fellow, 
but a noble, enthusiastic man and soldier. The only other 
living member of Moore’s family was with him, a lad of not 
more than twelve or thirteen years; and the devotion of the 
elder brother to the younger was tender as a mother’s. The 
little fellow was a strange, sad, prematurely old child, who 
seldom talked and never smiled. He used to wear a red 
zouave fez that ill-befitted the peculiar, sallow, pallid com¬ 
plexion of the piney-woods Georgian; but he was a perfect 
hero in a fight. After the great repulse it looked for a time 
as if Grant had some idea of digging up to or mining our 
position. We had all day been shelling a suspicious-look¬ 
ing working party of the enemy, and about sunset I was 
visiting the batteries to see that the guns were properly ar¬ 
ranged for night firing. As I approached Calloway’s posi¬ 
tion the sharpshooting had almost ceased, and down the line 
I could see the figures of the cannoneers standing out boldly 
against the sky. Moore was at the trail adjusting his piece 


298 


FOUR YEARS UNDER MARSE ROBERT 


for the night’s work. His gunnery had been superb during 
the evening and his blood was up. 

I descended into a little valley and lost sight of the group, 
but heard Calloway’s stern voice: “Sit down, Moore! Your 
gun is well enough; the sharpshooting is not over yet. Get 
down!” I rose the hill. “One moment, Captain! My trail’s 
a hair’s breadth too much to the right,” and the gunner bent 
eagerly over the hand-spike. A sharp report and that unmis¬ 
takable crash of a bullet against a man’s head. It was the 
last rifle shot on the lines that night. 

The rushing together of the detachment obstructed my 
view; but as I came up the sergeant stepped aside and said, 
“See there, Adjutant!” Moore had fallen on the trail, the 
blood flowing from his wound all over his face. His little 
brother was at his side instantly. No wildness, no tumult of 
grief. He knelt on the earth, and, lifting Allen’s head on 
his knees, wiped the blood from his forehead with the cuff of 
his own tattered shirt-sleeve and kissed the pale face again 
and again, but very quietly. Moore was evidently dead, and 
none of us cared to disturb the child. 

Presently he rose,—quiet still, tearless still,—gazed down 
at his dead brother, then around at us, and breathing the 
saddest sigh I ever heard, said: “Well, I am alone in the 
world!” 

The preacher-captain sprang to his side, and placing his 
hand on the poor lad’s shoulder, said confidently: “No, my 
child; you are not alone, for the Bible says: ‘When my 
father and my mother forsake me, then the Lord will take 
me up;’ and Allen was both father and mother to you; be¬ 
sides, I am going to take you up, too; you shall sleep under 
my blanket to-night.” 

There was not a dry eye in the group; and when, months 
afterwards, the whole battalion gathered on a quiet sabbath 
evening, on the banks of Swift Creek, to witness a baptism, 
and Calloway, at the water’s edge, tenderly handed this 
child to the officiating minister, and receiving him again 
when the ceremony was over, threw a blanket about the little 
shivering form, carried him into a thicket, changed his 
clothing, and then reappeared, carrying the bundle of wet 


COLD HARBOR OF ’64 


299 


clothes, and he and the child walked away, hand in hand, to 
camp—then there were more tears, manly, ennobling tears, 
and the sergeant laid his hand on my shoulder and said, 
“Faith, Adjutant, the Captain has fulfilled his pledge to 
that boy!” 

In one of the regiments of Kershaw’s old brigade, which 
was supporting our guns at Cold Harbor, were three young 
men, brothers, whose cool daring in battle attracted our 
special admiration. We did not know the names of these 
gallant fellows, but had christened them “Tom, Dick, and 
Harry.” A day or two after the great fight a fourth and 
youngest, a mere lad, who had been wounded at the Wilder¬ 
ness, came on his crutches to visit his brothers, and they had 
a hard time getting him safely into the trench. We no¬ 
ticed they called him “Fred.” He was going home on what 
the soldiers called “a wounded furloughthat is, a furlough 
granted because of a wound, to last until the man should be 
fit for service again; and as the lines were quiet in the sultry 
noon, except, of course, the spiteful sputter of the sharp¬ 
shooters, all the men from his neighborhood were soon busy 
painfully scribbling on scraps of paper and in the cramped 
trenches, letters for Fred to carry home. 

Meanwhile, “Tom, Dick and Harry” surrounded their pet, 
as he evidently was; and indeed he was a lovely thing. We 
had not specially noted that the other young men were gen¬ 
tlemen. In fact, that did not so specially appear through the 
dirt and rags. We had readily seen they were “men,” and 
that was what counted in those days. 

But Fred—all the dirt was off of him, and the rags, too, 
and the sunburn, and the squalor—they were all gone. The 
Richmond ladies who had attended to his wounds in the hos¬ 
pital had seen to his toilet as well, which was simple and 
strictly military, but of the best material and fitted perfectly 
his perfect figure. His thin skin, his blue veins, his small, 
finely-formed hands and feet, his beautiful manners—every¬ 
thing, in fact—indicated that he was the scion of a noble 
house, the flower of South Carolina chivalry. In short, he 
was the most thoroughbred and aristocratic-looking thing 
any of us had seen for many a day. Compared with the rest 


300 FOUR YEARS UNDER MARSE ROBERT 

of us and in the midst of our surroundings, he glowed like 
a fair seraph. 

After a while he warned the writers that the mail was 
about to close and they must bring in their letters; that his 
“old leg” was hurting him and he must be off. The men 
gathered around. His haversack was filled with the priceless 
letters, head and heart crowded to confusion with trite mes¬ 
sages, inestimably precious to those at home. He rose with 
a smile of weariness and pain, yet bright anticipation, and 
as he did so said, “Well, let me take a good look at those 
rascals over the way; for it will be a long time before I get 
another chance.” 

“Look out, Fred!” Too late! The sharp shock of the 
bullet against the skull—he sprang up wildly, his cap flew 
off and his brothers caught him in their arms and laid him 
gently down. The home letters tumbled out of the full 
haversack and were dabbled with the blood of the postman; 
his brothers knelt about him, in a silent grief awful to look 
upon, and heavy-hearted comrades gathered up each his 
blood-stained package and gazed vacantly at it. 

During the great gathering of Confederate soldiers at the 
dedication of the Lee Monument, in Richmond, I told this 
story of his Cold Harbor lines and his old brigade to Gen¬ 
eral Kershaw, when Gen. Joseph E. Johnston happened to 
be sitting near. It was too much for General Johnston. 
Tears started to his eyes and he reproved me sharply for tell¬ 
ing a story that had in it only dead, unrelieved pain. He 
added that he must “take the taste of that thing out of our 
mouths as quickly as possible;” and, as sharpshooting seem¬ 
ed to be the theme, he would repeat to us a practical lecture 
on that subject which he once heard delivered by an expert 
to a novice. 

He said it was during the Atlanta campaign that he was 
sitting in a clump of laurel on the north face of a mountain, 
out beyond the bounds of his own lines, sweeping with a 
glass the lines and camps of Sherman’s army, which were 
spread out before him upon the plain below. He had been 
deeply absorbed and was suddenly startled by hearing con¬ 
versation in a low tone comparatively near him. He sat 


COLD HARBOR OF ’64 


301 


absolutely still and peered about, until, to his great relief, 
he saw two gray-brown figures stretched out side by side 
on the leaves but a little distance in front of him. One was 
a grizzled, fire-seamed veteran, and the other a beardless 
youth, and the elder addressed the younger, in substance, 
as follows: 

“Now, Charley, when you ain’t in a fight, but just shootin’ 
so; of course you ought to get a fellow off by himself, be¬ 
fore you let fly. Then the next thing is to see what you need 
most of anything.- If it’s clothes, why, of course, you choose 
a fellow of your own size; but if it’s shoes you want, you 
just pick out the very littlest weevil-eaten chap you can find. 
Your feet would slide ’round in the shoes of a Yankee as big 
as you are like they was in flat-boats. Why, no longer ago 
than last evening I had drawed a bead on a fine, great big 
buck of a fellow, but just as I was about to drop him I 
looked around and found I didn’t have no shoes. So I let 
him pass, and pretty soon here come along a little cuss of an 
officer, and”—raising his right foot, as the old general did 
his, by way of vivid recital and illustration— “there’s the 
hoots.” 

A word or two as to the volume, intensity, and effect of 
the fire at Cold Harbor. So far as the Confederate fire is 
concerned, nothing can be needed to supplement the fearful 
record of the slaughter upon the Federal side. But now 
as to the Federal fire, and first, of artillery. I think the barn 
just back of the positions of Manly’s guns and two of the 
Howitzers’ was Ellyson’s. It was cut down, cut up and scat¬ 
tered, and the very ground so torn and ploughed by artillery 
fire that it was really difficult, after the battle was over, to 
say just where the barn had stood. Just back of this barn 
trees were so constantly felled across the road opened for the 
purpose of bringing in ammunition that it was necessary 
to have axe-men constantly at hand, and they were chopping 
almost continuously. Once or twice the falling trees and 
limbs actually drove the division pioneer corps from the 
work, and I was forced to get a detail from the Howitzers to 
do the necessary chopping. 


302 


FOUR YEARS UNDER MARSE ROBERT 


As to musketry fire, I remember counting ninety odd bul¬ 
let holes through a “dog tent,” which was stretched imme¬ 
diately back of Calloway’s guns, and he walked backward 
and forward between this tent and his pieces during the 
great attack. Though he did not leave the field, he was 
wounded in several places, and his clothes looked as if he had 
been drawn through a briar patch. His field glasses were 
smashed by a bullet and the guard of his revolver shot away. 
It is fair to say the same ball may have made two holes 
through Calloway’s little tent; but on the other hand, many 
balls may have passed through the same hole. 

When we left Cold Harbor all our bronze guns looked as 
if they had had smallpox, from the striking and splaying of 
leaden balls against them. Even the narrow lips of the 
pieces, about their muzzles, were indented in this way. One 
of the guns, I think of Manly’s battery, was actually cut 
down by musketry fire, every spoke of both wheels being 
cut. Indeed, I had an extra wheel brought and substituted 
for that which first became useless, and this also shared the 
same fate. It is my desire and purpose to speak accurately, 
and therefore I take occasion to say that I do not intend to 
imply that all the spokes were completely severed and cut 
in two separate parts. Some of them were and others were 
not, but these latter were so frayed and splintered that the 
wheel would not stand straight and could no longer be used 
as a wheel. Much of the other wood work of this and other 
guns was badly split and splintered by musket balls, and 
some of the lighter iron parts and attachments were shot 
away. 

The particular gun referred to was finally rendered abso¬ 
lutely useless for the rest of the fight. The men had work¬ 
ed it, for the most part, upon their hands and knees. How 
many of them were killed and wounded I do not recall; but 
one lieutenant was killed and one wounded, while directing, 
if I remember rightly, the fire of this gun and the one next 
to it. 

After the fight it was necessary for some purpose to tip 
this gun, when a quantity of lead, exactly how much I would 
not like to say, but I should think more than a handful, 


COLD HARBOR OF ’64 


303 


poured out of the muzzle upon the ground. The gun car¬ 
riage, with two of its wheels, was carried into Richmond 
and hung up in the arsenal as an evidence of what musketry 
fire might be and do. Dr. Gaines, of Gaines’ Mill, whom I 
knew very well, had the other wheel carried to his house. I 
saw it there a few years later. The hub and tire had actually 
fallen apart. 

A brief epitome of some of the salient features and re¬ 
sults of the campaign of 1864, from the Wilderness to Cold 
Harbor, inclusive, may not be devoid of interest. 

The campaign covered, say sixty miles of space and thirty 
days of time. General Lee had a little under 64,000 men of 
all arms present for duty at the outset, and he put hors de 
combat of Grant’s army an equal number man for man. Mr. 
Swinton, p. 482 of his “Army of the Potomac,” puts Grant’s 
loss at “above sixty thousand men;” so that Grant lost in 
killed and wounded and prisoners more than a thousand men 
per mile and more than two thousand men per day during the 
campaign. 

Again, Lee had, as stated, at the start, present for duty, 
less than 64,000 men, and the reinforcements he received 
numbered 14,400 men; so that, from first to last, he had 
under his command in this campaign, say 78,400 men; while 
Grant had at the start, present for duty, 141,160 men, and 
the reinforcements he received numbered 51,000 men; so 
that from first to last he had under his command in this 
campaign, say 192,160 men. 

Now, Grant’s one desire and effort was to turn Lee’s 
either flank, preferably his right flank, and thus get between 
him and Richmond. To accomplish this purpose, with his 
preponderance of numbers, he might have left man for man 
in Lee’s front, and at the same time thrown an army of 
77,000 to 114,000 on his flank, and yet he utterly failed to 
get around or to crush that inevitable, indomitable flank. 

From what I have read and heard of Grant, and the opin¬ 
ion I have formed of him, it is my belief that if this proposi¬ 
tion had been put to him he would have admitted candidly 
that he would not have dared to leave man for man in Lee’s 
front; that it would have been utterly unsafe for him to do 


304 FOUR YEARS UNDER MARSE ROBERT 

so—a statement I am certainly not prepared to dispute. Well, 
then; he might have left two for one in front of Lee, and yet 
have free from 13,000 to 36,000 men with which to turn his 
flank—and yet he failed utterly to turn it. 

The figures here used are those of Col. Walter Taylor, 
and are less favorable to Lee than those of most of the Con¬ 
federate authorities upon the war. General Early, for exam¬ 
ple, says that Lee, at the outset, had less than 50,000 effec¬ 
tives of all arms under his command. 

It is not my purpose to accentuate this contrast in any 
unfair or unpleasant way, and yet an intelligent soldier of 
the Army of Northern Virginia, who fought at Chancellors- 
ville in 1863, and again from the Rapidan to Cold Harbor 
in 1864, cannot but set opposite to the picture just sketched 
that of Lee holding the front of Hooker’s 92,000 with “scant 
14,000 muskets,” while with about one-third (1-3) his num¬ 
bers he utterly crushed in the right flank and rear of Hook¬ 
er’s great host. It should not be forgotten in this connec¬ 
tion, and in endeavoring to form a just estimate of Lee’s 
operations throughout this campaign of ’64, that in the death 
of Jackson, Lee had lost his great offensive right arm, to 
which, at Chancellorsville and theretofore, he had looked to 
carry into execution his confounding strategies and his over¬ 
powering, resistless attacks. 

This last suggestion was made as bearing upon a just 
and balanced view of the campaign in general, as well as 
an estimate of the ability displayed by Lee in the conduct 
of it. I ask leave to submit one other reflection of like 
general bearing, as well as tending to explain and relieve 
what may be regarded as adverse criticism of Grant. I 
said the soldiers of the Army of Northern Virginia did 
not generally consider Grant as a great strategist or ma- 
neuverer. His friends have entered for him a plea by 
way of confession and avoidance of this negative indict¬ 
ment—a good, sound plea. We cannot demur to it, and 
the Court of Impartial History will never strike it out as 
immaterial or improper, nor record a verdict that it is false. 

I have not before me just now General Badeau’s life 
of his chief, but in it he, in effect, says that Grant did not 


COLD HARBOR OF ’64 


305 


maneuver against the Army of Northern Virginia, be¬ 
cause he found maneuvering of no avail against that army. 
Other Federal generals have made in substance the same 
remark. Maneuvering differs from fighting as a force in 
war, in this, that fighting is purely physical, while ma¬ 
neuvering gets in its work largely upon the moral plane. 
Its most deadly and disastrous effect is wrought by the 
destruction of confidence; confidence of the out-maneuvered 
general in himself and in his army, of the out-maneuvered 
army in itself and in its general. 

In the case of Lee’s army none of these consequences fol¬ 
lowed, when, for example, its huge adversary overlapped 
it upon one flank or upon both; or even turned its flank and 
took it in reverse—a thing which actually happened at least 
once in this campaign, when Hancock, on the ioth of May, 
at Spottsylvania, marched clean and clear around our left 
flank, and even, for a time, drove us in the fighting there. 
The men in our line fully appreciated what was happening, 
and yet there was not the slightest trepidation. Billy 
chanced to be standing near two intelligent infantry sol¬ 
diers who were listening to and looking at the steady pro¬ 
gression of the fire and the smoke of the fight, further and 
further in our rear, and quietly discussing the situation. At 
a sudden swell of musketry one of them, removing his pipe 
from his mouth and spitting upon the ground, said, “Look 
here, Tom, if those fellows should get much further around 
there we would be in a bad fix here; we’d have to get out of 
this.” 

“Law, John!” said his friend, “Marse Robert’ll take care 
of those fellows. He knows just what to do.” 

So we all felt, and if he had deemed it best and so or¬ 
dered, we would have fought just as steadily in two lines, 
back to back and facing both ways. 

Two days later the gallant Hancock made further and, 
if possible, higher proof of the soundness of Grant’s plea, 
and of the steadfast, indomitable courage of the Army of 
Northern Virginia, when after bursting through its center 
with 40,000 men, and taking and holding the “Bloody 
Angle,” embracing, perhaps, counting both sides, approxi¬ 
mately two miles of its line, and capturing the infantry and 

20 


30 6 FOUR YEARS UNDER MARSE ROBERT 

the artillery that defended it, he yet found himself unable 
to advance one foot beyond the point where the first impulse 
had carried him, in the darkness and surprise, and he en¬ 
countered, across the base of the salient and at each ex¬ 
tremity of the captured line, troops as staunch and sturdy 
and unconquerable as any he had ever met in battle. 

It is this quality or condition, or habit of mind and con¬ 
duct, of which different Federal officers have spoken under 
different names, in expressing their high estimate of the 
Army of Northern Virginia. It is this which General 
Hooker terms “discipline,” in his remarkable testimony 
before the Committee on the Conduct of the War, already 
quoted, in the course of which, speaking of Lee’s army, he 
said “* * * that army has by discipline alone acquired a 
character for steadiness and efficiency unsurpassed, in my 
judgment, in ancient or modern times.” 

It has been said, and it may be true in a certain sense, 
to the honor and glory of the private soldiers of that im¬ 
mortal army, that the army made the general and made 
for him his world-wide fame; that General Lee through¬ 
out his great career wielded an unrivalled weapon, a weapon 
of perfect temper and of finest edge,—but it has also been 
said, and it is also true, perhaps in a yet higher sense, that 
the general made the army; that the weapon was wielded by 
an unrivalled swordsman, a swordsman of dauntless courage 
and of matchless skill. 

We are free to admit that, in our view, the explanation 
of all this is to be found largely in the fact that the relation 
between our general and our army was constant and per¬ 
manent, undissolved and indissoluble; that we grew to be, as 
it were, one body dominated by one great inspiring soul; 
and that we came to look with wonder, not unmixed with 
pity, upon the contrasted condition of the opposing Federal 
army, with generals jealous of and plotting against each 
other, and the Government forever pulling down one and 
putting up another. Nor are we small enough to be unap¬ 
preciative of the manhood which could and did, even under 
such unfavorable circumstances, exhibit the loyalty and 
courage which the Army of the Potomac exhibited upon 
many a hard-fought field. 


CHAPTER XXII 


FROM COLD HARBOR TO EVACUATION OF RICHMOND AND 
PETERSBURG 

Grant’s Change of Base—Petersburg Proves to Be His Immediate Ob¬ 
jective—Lee Just in Time to Prevent the Capture of the City—Our 
Battalion Stationed First in the Petersburg Lines, Then Between 
the James and the Appomattox—The Writer Commissioned Major 
of Artillery and Ordered to Chaffin’s Bluff—The Battalion There 
Greatly Demoralized—Measures Adopted to Tone it Up—Rapid 
Downward Trend of the Confederacy—“A Kid of the Goats” Gives 
a Lesson in Pluck. 

The repulse at Cold Harbor marked a crisis in the cam¬ 
paign. If Richmond was to continue to be Grant’s immediate 
objective, there was but one thing for him to do, and that was 
to fight, to renew his attack upon Lee’s lines. He was as close 
to Richmond as he could get by the old process of sliding 
southward and eastward. Every foot of further progress 
in that direction would be progress away from the goal. He 
must decide, then, between another effort to force his men 
to the imminent deadly breach and the abandonment of 
Richmond as his immediate objective. It took him nine 
days to decide, and then he folded his tents, like the Arabs, 
and silently stole away—at night, the night of June 12th. 

He was just in time. It was not Lee’s habit to give his 
adversary the choice of moves, especially if he took long 
to choose. He seldom abandoned the initiative—that is 
where at all practicable for him to retain it. He had only 
seemed to abandon it this time. It would have been, even 
for him, an astounding piece of audacity, with his worn 
and wasted little army, to march out from his intrench- 
ments and attack Grant’s overwhelming numbers, yet he 
had determined to do this very thing. On page 37 of his 
address, so often quoted, General Early says: 


308 FOUR YEARS UNDER MARSE ROBERT 

Notwithstanding the disparity which existed, he was anxious, as I 
know, to avail himself of every opportunity to strike an offensive blow; 
and just as Grant was preparing to move across James River, with his 
defeated and dispirited army, General Lee was maturing his plans for 
taking the offensive; and in stating his desire for me to take the initia¬ 
tive with the corps I then commanded, he said: “We must destroy this 
army of Grant’s before he gets to James River. If he gets there it will 
become a siege, and then it will be a mere question of time. 

It was the startling intelligence of Hunter’s operations in 
the Valley which prevented the contemplated movement 
against Grant. It became necessary to detach, first Breck- 
enridge, and then Early, to meet this new peril threatening 
Lee’s communications. As Early’s corps was to have led the 
attack, and because it was worse than hopeless to attack 
at all with his army thus seriously reduced, Lee was com¬ 
pelled to abandon his cherished plan, and Grant retired un¬ 
molested from Lee’s front on the very night that Early 
received his orders to move at three o’clock next morning 
for the Valley; so close and critical was the sequence of 
events in these later days of the struggle. 

When we waked on the morning of the 13th and found 
no enemy in our front we realized that a new element had 
entered into this move—the element of uncertainty. Thus 
far, during the campaign, whenever the enemy was missing, 
we knew where, that is, in what direction and upon what 
line, to look for him; he was certainly making for a point 
between us and Richmond. Not so now—even Marse Rob¬ 
ert, who knew everything knowable, did not appear to know 
what his old enemy proposed to do or where he would be 
most likely to find him. 

I remember I went across to the Federal works and was 
surprised to see what a short distance they were from ours, 
and how enormous and elaborate they looked in comparison. 
I have been all over the opposing lines at Cold Harbor since 
the war,—so far as they remain undisturbed,—and this lat¬ 
ter impression has been confirmed and strengthened. At 
some points it really seems as if the Federal army had an¬ 
ticipated attack from every point, except the skies, and for¬ 
tified against them all. 


FROM COLD HARBOR TO EVACUATION 3O9 

I have little or no recollection of our search for Grant, 
except that there was nothing about it calculated to make 
an impression—that it seemed rather a slow, stupid affair. 
Of course we crossed the Chickahominy, and then we work¬ 
ed down toward Malvern Hill. I am not even sure, how¬ 
ever, whether we left the vicinity of Cold Harbor on the 
13th or waited a day or two in that neighborhood. We 
did not cross the James River, I think, until the night of 
the 17th; but from that time everything seemed to have 
waked up, and though we saw no enemy, yet we knew 
where he was, and that Petersburg was his immediate ob¬ 
jective and not Richmond, nor any point on James River. 

We made a rapid all-night march, which was a very try¬ 
ing one, on account of the heat and the heavy dust which 
covered everything and everybody and rendered breathing 
all but impossible. We stopped an hour or so to rest the 
horses—we did not so much regard the men—and arrived 
in Petersburg in the early morning, our division and our 
battalion being among the first of Lee’s troops to arrive. 
We were just in time to prevent Burnside from making an 
assault, which would probably have given him the city. 
General Beauregard had made admirable use of the 
scant force at his command and had successfully repulsed all 
previous attacks, but he did not have a garrison at all ade¬ 
quate to resist the countless thousands of Grant’s main army, 
which had now begun to arrive, and which seems to have 
been deterred from the assault by the knowledge of our ar¬ 
rival. 

The whole population of the city appeared to be in the 
streets and thoroughly alive to the narrow escape they had 
made. Though we had done nothing save to come right 
along, after we found out where to come, they seemed to be 
overflowing with gratitude to us. Ladies, old and young, 
met us at their front gates with hearty welcome, cool water, 
and delicious viands, and did not at all shrink from grasp¬ 
ing our rough and dirty hands. There is nothing more in¬ 
spiring to a soldier than to pass through the streets of a city 
he is helping to defend, and to be greeted as a deliverer 
by its women and children. He would be a spiritless wretch 


3 IQ 


FOUR YEARS UNDER MARSE ROBERT 


indeed who could not be a hero after passing through a 
scene like this. Grant’s men did not seem to yearn for 
close contact with us immediately after such an experience, 
and they did wisely to defer that pleasure. 

We were not at once placed upon the lines, and some of 
us witnessed scenes yet more intense when a command 
passed through the streets which had in it what was left of 
several companies originally recruited in Petersburg. Every 
now and then along the line of march some squalid, tattered 
fellow, with dust-begrimed and sweat-stained face, would 
dart out of the column, run up the steps to the pillared porch 
of a fine old mansion and fling his arms about some lovely, 
silver-haired matron, and fairly smother her with kisses; 
she fervently returning his embrace, and following him 
with her blessing as he hurried to catch up with the com- 
mand and resume his place in the ranks. 

My recollection is that we were placed in the works about 
noon and remained only a few hours, never firing a shot nor 
seeing an enemy; and then followed an experience unpar¬ 
alleled since we left Leesburg in the spring of ’62. Our 
guns were withdrawn late in the night and we passed back 
through Petersburg, recrossed the Appomattox River, and 
were stationed on the lines, between that and the James, 
near the Dunn house, the Howitzers quartered in the house; 
and there the battalion remained from say the 20th of June, 
1864, until the 2d of April, 1865, without ever so much as 
■firing a shot or being fired at by an enemy, except that I 
have an indistinct recollection of our taking a rifled gun, I 
think of Manly’s battery, a little in advance and to the left 
of our regular position, and taking a shot or two at the 
astronomer or observer in General Butler’s tower. This 
was really a little hard on that gentleman, as I am confi¬ 
dent he never did us any harm; but then I am equally con¬ 
fident we did not do him any. On the contrary, we gave 
him a little respite from his high and exalted position and 
his exhausting observations. 

I said the experience was unparalleled. I refer of course to 
our being placed in such a safe and easy position. Both the 
preceding winters we had passed upon the advanced picket 


FROM COLD HARBOR TO EVACUATION 31I 

line of the army—while most of the artillery was quartered 
on the railroad in comfortable winter camps. We were not 
responsible for being now, as it were, “mustered out of serv¬ 
ice yet we could not repress a vague feeling that, somehow, 
we were not doing our full duty. Especially was this feeling 
intensified when, a few months later, Mahone’s division, 
which had been manning a very trying part of the Peters¬ 
burg lines, was brought over between the Appomattox and 
the James to relieve Pickett’s, which was sent north of the 
James. We thought we had before seen men with the 
marks of hard service upon them; but the appearance of this 
division of Mahone’s, and particularly of Finnegan’s Florida 
brigade, with which we happened to be most closely asso¬ 
ciated, made us realize, for the first time, what our comrades 
in the hottest Petersburg lines were undergoing. We were 
shocked at the condition, the complexion, the expression of 
the men, and of the officers, too, even the field officers; in¬ 
deed we could scarcely realize that the unwashed, uncombed, 
unfed and almost unclad creatures we saw were officers of 
rank and reputation in the army It was a great pleasure, 
too, to note these gallant fellows, looking up and coming 
out, under the vastly improved conditions in which they 
found themselves. 

Sometime, I think in December, ’64,—strange as it may 
appear, I am not certain of the date—I was promoted to 
be major of artillery, and ordered on duty with the battal¬ 
ion of heavy artillery at Chaffin’s Bluff, on the north side of 
the James River, about ten or twelve miles below Richmond, 
and about a mile below Drewry’s Bluff, which was on the 
south side. There were batteries of heavy guns on the shore 
at both these points, the battalions manning them being also 
armed with muskets, and our iron-clads were anchored in 
the river about and between the two land batteries. These 
iron-clads were manned by a body of marines and seamen 
under command of Admiral Tucker. At the close of the 
campaign proper of 1864 all the troops manning the defenses 
of Richmond who were not strictly of the Army of Northern 
Virginia were under command of Lieutenant-General Ewell, 
who was in charge of the Department of Richmond. The 


312 FOUR YEARS UNDER MARSE ROBERT 

heavy artillery battalions on the river—the Chaffin’s Bluff 
battalion among them—and the local troops manning the 
parts of the line adjacent thereto constituted the division of 
Gen. Custis Lee, eldest son of Gen. Robert E. Lee, a man 
of the highest character and an officer of the finest culture 
and a very high order of ability. He did not have a fair 
opportunity during the war, President Davis, of whose 
staff he was a member, refusing to permit him to go to the 
field, though he plead earnestly to do so. He was a most 
sensitive and modest gentleman, and would have rejoiced 
to command even a regiment in his father’s army. After 
he was sent to the field, in the modified way in which he was 
sent near the close of the war, he more than once told me 
that every time he met one of his father’s veteran fighting 
colonels he felt compromised at having the stars and wreath 
of a major-general on his collar. 

When I first went to Chaffin’s, Colonel Hardaway, of 
the Field Artillery of the Army of Northern Virginia, was 
in command, but, as I remember, he left very soon. Some 
time before the end, Major Gibbes, who had served with our 
battalion (Cabell’s) during a part of the campaign of ’64, 
was sent there, and of course ranked me; but for a consid¬ 
erable time I was in command of the post and of the bat¬ 
talion, and of course was greatly interested in becoming 
thoroughly acquainted with my duties and my men. 

They were splendid soldiers in external appearance and 
bearing. I had never seen anything approximating to them 
in the field. Their dress-parades, inspections, reports, sa¬ 
lutes, bearing in the presence of officers and on guard were 
wonderfully regular, accurate, and according to the drill and 
regulations. The mint, anise, and cumin were most scrupu¬ 
lously tithed; but the weightier matters of the soldier law— 
patriotism, devotion, loyalty, fidelity, courage, endurance,— 
how as to these? Perhaps the first day I was in command 
the sergeant-major and acting-adjutant brought me his re¬ 
port, which I looked over and found very satisfactory— 
until I came to the added foot-note, that a first lieutenant 
and several non-commissioned officers and men had “disap¬ 
peared” the preceding day while on a “wood detail” down 
the river. 


FROM COLD HARBOR TO EVACUATION 313 

I recalled the adjutant and asked him what that entry- 
meant. He seemed surprised and did not answer promptly. 
Changing the form of the question, I asked if it was possi¬ 
ble it meant what it seemed to mean, and he replied that 
it did. I made him sit down and tell me all he knew of 
the matter, in the course of the conversation sending for 
his book of reports and examining them for some time back. 
I saw no entry quite so shocking as the report of the day, but 
found that entries of like character were not infrequent; 
that every few days these details were sent down the river 
to get wood and were in the habit of meeting emissaries sent 
by the enemy for the purpose, who offered them every in¬ 
ducement to desert; that these inducements were embodied 
also in printed circulars, one of which was shown me. I 
was horrified, and in the course of the next day or two made 
a careful investigation into the character and condition of 
the command, the result of which was anything but satis¬ 
factory. 

I hardly knew what to do, but through the acting-adju¬ 
tant, who turned out to be an excellent fellow and a trust¬ 
worthy, useful, and promising officer, I was enabled to 
secure a conference of the best officers of the battalion, and 
in a long interview to secure their confidence and co-opera¬ 
tion, and we set to work together to change the condition 
of things. I ingratiated myself, too, with the men by doing 
away with a number of petty orders and regulations which 
were annoying and burdensome, and instituting in their 
place a few which were really important. Among other 
things I, of course, did away with this down-the-river wood- 
detail. 

It is not worth while to particularize further. Suffice it to 
say, I endeavored to impress upon the men three things: 
first, that I already knew a great deal about them and ex¬ 
pected and intended to know them thoroughly; second, that 
I was in command of them and expected and intended to 
be obeyed implicitly; and third, that I was their friend and 
expected and intended to do the very best I could for them 
in every way. I will only add that I was deeply stirred, and 
put my whole heart and soul into the matter and into my 


314 FOUR YEARS UNDER MARSE ROBERT 

men, and that my efforts ultimately effected more than I had 
even dared to hope; particularly in the line of securing the re¬ 
spect and confidence and friendly regard of the men. The 
greatest difficulty was encountered in the fact that not a few 
of the officers were utterly worthless, and I determined to get 
rid of these, but as to this was compelled to move slowly. 

One other measure adopted certainly ought to be men¬ 
tioned. There were a good many Christian men in the com¬ 
mand, but they seemed to have little or no social or public 
religious life. I had these assembled for special, infor¬ 
mal conference with the commanding officer. I talked with 
them, in a general way, about the condition of the command, 
and asked their interest and assistance in doing everything 
possible to improve it and tone it up, and gave notice that I 
would myself, whenever it was practicable, conduct a simple 
religious service on Sunday evenings in our log church, to 
which all were invited, but none would be compelled to at¬ 
tend. I believe this little service conduced as much as any 
other means or measure to such success as attended my 
efforts. 

I had but two unpleasant collisions with the men. One was 
a simple, though aggravated, case of open disrespect to some 
announcement or order having to do with the new order of 
things, and which was read at dress-parade. This I pun¬ 
ished on the spot, and severely, and we never had any repe¬ 
tition of it. The other was a more complicated and trouble¬ 
some affair. 

The weather was very cold, and after I put a stop to the 
wood-detail down the river, the men began cutting some of 
the standing timber upon and back of the bluff; but orders 
were sent me by competent authority forbidding this, and 
these orders were duly read at dress-parade and also posted. 
I did the best I could to provide wood, but the supply was 
inadequate, and the men really suffered. I explained how 
much I regretted the situation and added that I fared 
and should fare no better than they. I was compelled, 
of course, to nave fire in the adjutant’s office, where writing 
must be done; but I should have none in my house except 
when they had it in their houses, and no more wood than 


FROM COLD HARBOR TO EVACUATION 315 

they had, and I urged the observance of the regulation 
against cutting wood on the bluff, to which special import¬ 
ance seemed to be attached by the authorities. 

The men were resentful and rebellious about this regula¬ 
tion against felling trees. My order stopping the river wood- 
detail was the obvious consequence of the disgraceful ac¬ 
tion of their comrades, and that they did not seem to resent. 
But, one cold night, soon after my special utterance about 
the preservation of the timber, while lying awake in bed—• 
very likely from cold—I heard the regular blows of two 
axes upon a tree. I got up, dressed, and armed myself, and 
made my way through the snow, guided by the sound, until 
I was close upon two men who were chopping at a large tree 
which was about toppling to its fall. I waited until it did 
fall and then came suddenly upon them. They started to 
run, but I ordered them to halt, impressing the order with 
my revolver, and adding that I knew them both. I re¬ 
minded them that they could not possibly plead ignorance 
of the order and asked how they thought I ought to punish 
them, to which, of course, they made no response. I then 
expressed deep sympathy with them; adding that, though 
it would break up discipline to allow sympathy with suffer¬ 
ing to excuse flagrant violation of orders, yet as it was the 
first offense, and they were so entirely in my power, and 
seemed to admit the truth and force of all I had said, I had 
determined to take no further notice of the matter. They 
thanked me profusely and were about to return to their 
quarters, but I ordered them to remain and cut up the tree 
for use; but that, of course, it should be divided among the 
command or distributed by the quartermaster with his other 
wood. I exacted from them a promise not only not to fell 
any more trees themselves, but to do all in their power to 
put a stop to tree-cutting by others. The two men told this 
story around the battalion, with considerable amplification 
and adornment. .It seemed to make an unexpectedly strong 
and favorable impression and was one of the definite things 
that aided the accomplishment of my intense desire to get 
hold of my men. 

Of course I greatly missed my old life, and especially its 
congenial and often charming companionship. This life 


31 6 FOUR YEARS UNDER MARSE ROBERT 

was comparatively solitary, but it was after all a life of 
greater power, a life that meant more, and I was becoming 
deeply absorbed in it. I felt more and more what a tremen¬ 
dous thing it was to have almost absolute power over men 
and to be in a position where I could well nigh mould them 
to my will. Billy came over to see me after I had gotten 
pretty well under way in my work, and seemed thoroughly to 
agree with me about it; though it was shocking to him to 
be brought into contact with soldiers of such a stamp and 
standard as I have described. 

Colonel Hardaway’s old battalion was composed of as fine 
material as any in General Lee’s army, and I did not won¬ 
der that he preferred to return to it. Just before or just 
after we abandoned our lines, General Alexander requested 
that both Major Gibbes and myself should be sent to him, 
one to serve in Hardaway’s battalion and one in Haskell’s. 
But Gen. Custis Lee, commanding our division, declined to 
give up both of us, and as Gibbes ranked me, he had the 
choice and went to Hardaway, while I remained with my 
Chaffin’s Bluff battalion, not only in command, but the only 
field officer connected with it. 

I recall but one incident of these lines worth relating. 
After the loss of Fort Harrison in September, ’64, our picket 
line was retired and the enemy’s advanced, in front of the 
fort; but nearer the river we still held our old line, and upon 
it a wooded knoll which commanded a full view of the 
enemy’s main line, and so was very important to us and our 
tenure of it correspondingly annoying to them. The Fed¬ 
eral lines at this point were manned by negro troops. 

One evening, sitting on the knoll and looking toward 
Fort Harrison, several hundred yards distant, I observed the 
negro picket near the intersection of our old picket line and 
theirs, walking his beat upon our line, instead of theirs, and 
so coming directly toward me. Then he took his return 
beat toward the fort, but when he came again he extended his 
beat further in my direction, and another followed him. So 
the next time there were three of them upon our line, and I 
divined their purpose, which was by moral pressure, as it 
were, to crowd us back from the knoll. 


FROM COLD HARBOR TO EVACUATION 317 

I had only two men with me, but I dispatched one to Gen¬ 
eral Custis Lee, with a brief note of explanation, asking that 
fifty men be sent me immediately. Meanwhile I mounted 
my remaining man on our old picket line, faced toward Fort 
Harrison, and ordered him to walk rapidly—I walking at 
his side—just inside the little curtain of earth. 

When the negroes saw us coming they turned back and I 
could see the one nearest us was trembling as he heard our 
steps approaching. When we came close upon him he turn¬ 
ed, his face actually ashy, and holding his gun in both hands 
horizontally, he obtruded it towards us, at the same time 
backing away and saying: 

“ ’Tain’t my fault. Officer ob de day tell me to come up 
ais way.” 

Noticing this revelation, but not remarking upon it, I 
picked up a billet of wood and laid it across the top of the 
little work, between my man and the negro, saying, “If that 
negro steps across that piece of wood, shoot him; and if he 
steps off the line, on either side, shoot him.” 

This broke up the little scheme. The negroes retired be¬ 
yond the intersection of the lines and I never saw one of 
them pass it again. 

During the seven months from September, ’64, to March, 
*65, inclusive, no intelligent man could fail to note the trend 
and progress of events. The defeat of Hood, the fall of 
Atlanta, the unfortunate expedition into Tennessee, the 
march of Sherman southward through Georgia to the ocean, 
his march northward through the Carolinas to Goldsboro, 
the fall of Savannah, of Charleston, of Wilmington—all 
these and other defeats, losses, and calamities had left to 
the Confederacy little save its Capital and the narrow strips 
of country bordering on the three railroads that fed it. Of 
course I was—we all were—thoroughly aware of this, and 
yet, though it may be difficult now to realize it, we did not 
even approximate the failure of heart or of hope. One of 
our dreams was that Lee, having the inner line, might draw 
away from Grant, concentrate with Johnston, and crush 
Sherman, and then, turning, the two might crush Grant. 
Yet we relied not so much on any special plans or hopes, 


318 FOUR YEARS UNDER MARSE ROBERT 

but rather upon the inherently imperishable cause, the in¬ 
herently unconquerable man. Fresh disaster each day did 
not affect our confidence. We were quite ready to admit, 
indeed we had already contemplated and discounted any¬ 
thing and everything this side of the ultimate disaster; 
but that— never! 

This was emphatically my position. I well remember that 
after the evacuation and on the retreat,—indeed but one day 
before Sailor's Creek,—I left the line of march for an hour 
to see my mother, who was refugeeing in Amelia County, 
at the country home of a prominent gentleman of Richmond, 
beyond military age, who, when he saw me, exclaimed: 

“Ah, Bob, my dear boy; it is all over!” 

“Over, sir?” said I, with the greatest sincerity; “over? 
Why, sir, it has just begun. We are now where a good 
many of us have for a good while longed to be: Richmond 
gone, nothing to take care of, foot loose and, thank God, out 
of those miserable lines! Now we may be able to get what 
we have longed for for months, a fair fight in an open field. 
Let them come on, if they are ready for this, and the sooner 
the better.” 

One very inclement day in the early spring of ’65 I was 
leaving Richmond, about four or five o’clock in the evening, 
for the long, dreary, comfortless ride to Chaffin’s Bluff. I 
cannot recall ever having been so greatly depressed. I passed 
Dr. Hoge’s church and noticed the silent women in black 
streaming, with bowed heads, from all points, toward the 
sanctuary, and longed intently to enter with them; but I 
could not, as it would detain me too long from my post. 
Every face was pale and sad, but resolute and prayerful; 
while every window in the church—nay, every one in the 
doomed city—was shuddering with the deep boom of artil¬ 
lery. 

I passed on down Main street and, where the terraced Libby 
Hill Park now is, then a rough, unsightly place, I observed 
a little kid cutting some unusual capers on the brink of a 
precipitous bluff. He was evidently trying to force him¬ 
self to make the perilous leap to the street below, but shrank 
from the test. Two or three times he trotted back a little 


FROM COLD HARBOR TO EVACUATION 319 

from the brow, and ran forward, but he would swerve upon 
the very brink, and then would stand, first upon his hind 
legs and then his fore, and shake his pretty head, and bleat 
and b-a-a. At last he went back further, and coming on 
at prodigious speed, tried as before to stop himself on the 
edge, but failed, and passing clear of the brow and of all 
obstacles and projections, he did light, sure enough, in the 
level street, and though a little shaken up, yet seemed to feel 
that he had done a big thing and that all his troubles were 
behind him. 

The game little fellow curvetted and danced and pranced 
around the very feet of my horse, seeming to strive to arrest 
my attention and to say to me: “Do you not see—the jump¬ 
ing-off place is not the end of all things ? Never say die! If 
you must leave your present position and jump off, do it like 
a man and make the best of it. The end is not yet.” 


CHAPTER XXIII 


THE RETREAT FROM CHAFFIN^ BLUFF TO SAILOR^ CREEK 

On the Works, Sunday Evening, April 2d, ’65, Listening to the Reced¬ 
ing Fire at Petersburg—Evening Service with the Men Interrupted 
by the Order to Evacuate the Lines—Explosions of the Magazines, 
of the Land Batteries and Iron-Clads—A Soldier’s Wife Sends Her 
Husband Word to Desert, But Recalls the Message—Marching, 
Halting, Marching, Day After Day, Night After Night—Lack of 
Food, Lack of Rest, Lack of Sleep—Many Drop by the Wayside, 
Others Lose Self-control and Fire into Each Other—In the Bloody 
Fight of the 6th at Sailor’s Creek, the Battalion Redeems Itself, 
Goes Down with Flying Colors, and Is Complimented on the Field 
by General Ewell, After He and All Who Are Left of Us Are 
Prisoners of War. 

Not many weeks later, on Sunday, the 2d of April, I stood 
almost all day on our works overhanging the river, listening 
to the fire about Petersburg, and noting its peculiar charac¬ 
ter and progression. I made up my mind what it meant, and 
had time and space out there alone with God and upon His 
day to commit myself and mine to Him, and to anticipate 
and prepare for the immediate future. Late in the after¬ 
noon I walked back to my quarters, and soon after, George 
Cary Eggleston, who was then in a command that held a 
part of the line near us, dropped in. He tells me now that I 
asked him then what effect he thought it would have upon 
our cause if our lines should be broken and we compelled to 
give up Petersburg and Richmond; and that he declined to 
answer the question because, as he said, the supposed facts 
were out of the plane of the practical, and would not and 
could not happen. Now, years afterwards, recalling the 
peculiar expression and manner with which I propounded 
this interrogatory, he asks whether I had then received any 
official information, and I answer in the negative—no, none 


THE RETREAT 


321 


whatever. Up to the time Eggleston left my camp for his 
I knew nothing beyond what my tell-tale ears and prescient 
soul had told me. 

Indeed, we went into our meeting that night without any 
other information; but I had directed the acting-adjutant 
to remain in his office and to bring at once to me, in the 
church, any orders that might come to hand. Our service 
was one of unusual power and interest. I read with the 
men the “Soldier Psalm,” the ninety-first, and exhorted 
them, in any special pressure that might come upon us in 
the near future—the “terror by night” or the “destruction 
* * * at noon-day”—to abide with entire confidence in that 
“Stronghold,” to appropriate that “Strength.” 

As I uttered these words, I noticed a well-grown, fine- 
looking country lad named Blount, who was leaning for¬ 
ward, and gazing at me with eager interest, while tears of 
sympathy and appreciation were brimming his eyes. The 
door opened and the adjutant appeared. I told him to stand 
a moment where he was, and as quietly as possible told the 
men what I was satisfied was the purport of the paper he 
held in his hand, and why I was so satisfied. And then we 
prayed for the realization of what David had expressed in 
that Psalm—for faith, for strength, for protection. After 
the prayer I called for the paper and read it over, first 
silently and then aloud, gave brief directions to the men and 
dismissed them—first calling upon such officers and non¬ 
commissioned officers of the battalion as had special duties 
to perform in connection with the magazines, etc., to remain 
a few moments. The men were ordered to rendezvous at a 
given hour, and to fall in by companies on the parade, and 
the company officers were ordered to see that they brought 
with them only what was absolutely necessary, and a brief 
approximate list was given of the proper campaign outfit. 
But the poor fellows had been many months in garrison, and 
it was maddening work, within a short and fixed time, to se¬ 
lect from their motley accumulations what was really neces¬ 
sary in the changed conditions ahead of us. 

The orders were, in general, that the men of the fleet and 
of the James River defenses should leave the river about 


21 


322 FOUR YEARS UNDER MARSE ROBERT 

midnight of the 2d of April, exploding magazines and iron¬ 
clads, and join the Army of Northern Virginia in its retreat. 
Orders such as these were enough to try the mettle even of 
the best troops, in the highest condition, but for my poor 
little battalion they were overwhelming, well nigh stupefy¬ 
ing. The marvel is that they held together at all and left the 
Bluff, as they did, in pretty fair condition. A few months 
earlier I question whether they would have been equal to it. 

I said they left in pretty fair condition, and so they did, 
except that they had more baggage piled upon their backs 
than any one brigade, perhaps I might say division, in Gen¬ 
eral Lee’s army was bearing at the same moment. I could 
hardly blame them, and there was no time to correct the 
folly; besides, I knew it would correct and adjust itself, as 
it had done pretty well by morning. 

The explosions began just as we got across the river. 
When the magazines at Chaffin’s and Drury’s Bluffs went 
off, the solid earth shuddered convulsively; but as the iron¬ 
clads—one after another—exploded, it seemed as if the very 
dome of heaven would be shattered down upon us. Earth 
and air and the black sky glared in the lurid light. Columns 
and towers and pinnacles of flame shot upward to an amaz¬ 
ing height, from which, on all sides, the ignited shells flew 
on arcs of fire and burst as if bombarding heaven. I dis¬ 
tinctly remember feeling that after this I could never more be 
startled—no, not by the catastrophes of the last great day. 

I walked in rear of the battalion to prevent straggling, 
and as the successive flashes illumined the darkness the 
blanched faces and staring eyes turned backward upon me 
spoke volumes of nervous demoralization. I felt that a hare 
might shatter the column. 

We halted at daylight at a country cross-road in Chester¬ 
field to allow other bodies of troops to pass, the bulk of my 
men lying down and falling asleep in a grove; but seeing 
others about a well in the yard of a farm house over the 
way, I deemed it best to go there to see that nothing was 
unnecessarily disturbed. 

I sat in the porch, where were also sitting an old couple, 
evidently the joint head of the establishment, and a young 


THE RETREAT 


323 


woman dressed in black, apparently their daughter, and, as I 
soon learned, a soldier’s widow. My coat was badly torn, 
and the young woman kindly offering to mend it, I thanked 
her and, taking it off, handed it to her. While we were chat¬ 
ting, and groups of men sitting on the steps and lying about 
the yard, the door of the house opened and another young 
woman appeared. She was almost beautiful, was plainly but 
neatly dressed, and had her hat on. She had evidently been 
weeping and her face was deadly pale. Turning to the old 
woman, as she came out, she said, cutting her words off 
short, “Mother, tell him if he passes here he is no husband 
of mine,” and turned again to leave the porch. I rose, and 
placing myself directly in front of her, extended my arm 
to prevent her escape. She drew back with surprise and 
indignation. The men were alert on the instant, and battle 
was joined. 

“What do you mean, sir ?” she cried. 

“I mean, madam,” I replied, “that you are sending your 
husband word to desert, and that I cannot permit you to do 
this in the presence of my men.” 

“Indeed! and who asked your permission, sir ? And pray, 
sir, is he your husband or mine?” 

“He is your husband, madam, but these are my soldiers. 
They and I belong to the same army with your husband, and 
I cannot suffer you, or anyone, unchallenged, to send such 
a demoralizing message in their hearing.” 

“Army! do you call this mob of retreating cowards an 
army? Soldiers! if you are soldiers, why don’t you stand 
and fight the savage wolves that are coming upon us de¬ 
fenseless women and children ?” 

“We don’t stand and fight, madam, because we are sol¬ 
diers, and have to obey orders, but if the enemy should ap¬ 
pear on that hill this moment I think you would find that 
these men are soldiers, and willing to die in defense of 
women and children.” 

“Quite a fine speech, sir, but rather cheap to utter, since 
you very well know the Yankees are not here, and won’t be, 
till you’ve had time to get your precious carcasses out of the 
way. Besides, sir, this thing is over, and has been for some 


324 FOUR YEARS UNDER MARSE ROBERT 

time. The Government has now actually run off, bag and 
baggage,—the Lord knows where,—and there is no longer 
any Government or any country for my husband to owe al¬ 
legiance to. He does owe allegiance to me and to his starv¬ 
ing children, and if he doesn’t observe this allegiance now, 
when I need him, he needn’t attempt it hereafter when he 
wants me” 

The woman was quick as a flash and cold as steel. She 
was getting the better of me. She saw it, I felt it, and, worst 
of all, the men saw and felt it, too, and had gathered thick 
and pressed up close all round the porch. There must have 
been a hundred or more of them, all eagerly listening, and 
evidently leaning strongly to the woman’s side. 

This would never do. 

I tried every avenue of approach to that woman’s heart. 
It was congealed by suffering, or else it was encased in 
adamant. She had parried every thrust, repelled every ad¬ 
vance, and was now standing defiant, with her arms folded 
across her breast, rather courting further attack. I was des¬ 
perate, and with the nonchalance of pure desperation—no 
stroke of genius—I asked the soldier-question: 

“What command does your husband belong to?” 

She started a little, and there was a trace of color in her 
face as she replied, with a slight tone of pride in her voice: 

“He belongs to the Stonewall Brigade, sir.” 

I felt, rather than thought it—but, had I really found her 
heart? We would see. 

“When did he join it?” 

A little deeper flush, a little stronger emphasis of pride. 

“He joined it in the spring of ’61, sir.”* 

Yes, I was sure of it now. Her eyes had gazed straight 
into mine; her head inclined and her eyelids drooped a little 
now, and there was something in her face that was not pain 


♦The Stonewall Brigade was, of course, not so named until after the 
first battle of Manassas, and it did not exist an an organization after 
May, 1864; but men who had at any time belonged to one of the regi¬ 
ments that composed it ever after claimed membership in the brigade. 
Among soldiers of the Army of Northern Virginia, and yet more among 
their families and friends, once of “The Stonewall Brigade,” always of 
that immortal corps. 



THE RETREAT 325 

and was not fight. So I let myself out a little, and turning to 
the men, said: 

“Men, if her husband joined the Stonewall Brigade in ’61, 
and has been in the army ever since, I reckon he’s a good 
soldier.” 

I turned to look at her. It was all over. Her wifehood 
had conquered. She had not been addressed this time, yet 
she answered instantly, with head raised high, face flushing, 
eyes flashing— 

“General Lee hasn’t a better in his army!” 

As she uttered these words she put her hand in her bosom, 
and drawing out a folded paper, extended it toward me, 
saying: 

“If you doubt it, look at that.” 

Before her hand reached mine she drew it back, seeming to 
have changed her mind, but I caught her wrist, and without 
much resistance, possessed myself of the paper. It had been 
much thumbed and was much worn. It was hardly legible, 
but I made it out. Again I turned to the men. 

“Take off your hats, boys, I want you to hear this with un¬ 
covered heads”—and then I read an endorsement on appli¬ 
cation for furlough, in which General Lee himself had sign¬ 
ed a recommendation of this woman’s husband for a fur¬ 
lough of special length on account of extraordinary gal¬ 
lantry in battle. 

During the reading of this paper the woman was trans¬ 
figured, glorified. No Madonna of old master was ever more 
sweetly radiant with all that appeals to what is best and 
holiest in man. Her bosom rose and fell with deep, quiet 
sighs; her eyes rained gentle, happy tears. 

The men felt it all— all . They were all gazing upon her, 
but the dross was clean, purified out of them. There was 
not, upon any one of their faces an expression that would 
have brought a blush to the cheek of the purest womanhood 
on earth. I turned once more to the soldier’s wife. 

“This little paper is your most precious treasure, isn’t 
it?” 

“It is.” 


326 FOUR YEARS UNDER MARSE ROBERT 

“And the love of him whose manly courage and devo¬ 
tion won this tribute is the best blessing God ever gave you, 
isn’t it?” 

“It is.” 

“And yet, for the brief ecstasy of one kiss, you would dis¬ 
grace this hero-husband of yours, stain all his noble reputa¬ 
tion, and turn this priceless paper to bitterness; for the rear¬ 
guard would hunt him from his own cottage, in half an hour, 
a deserter and a coward.” 

Not a sound could be heard save her hurried breathing. 
The rest of us held even our breath. 

Suddenly, with a gasp of recovered consciousness, she 
snatched the paper from my hand, put it back hurriedly in 
her bosom, and turning once more to her mother, said: 

“Mother, tell him not to come.” 

I stepped aside at once. She left the porch, glided down 
the path to the gate, crossed the road, surmounted the fence 
with easy grace, climbed the hill, and as she disappeared in 
the weedy pathway I caught up my hat and said: 

“Now, men, give her three cheers.” 

Such cheers! Oh, God! shall I ever again hear a cheer 
which bears a man’s whole soul in it? 

For the first time I felt reasonably sure of my battalion. 
It would follow me anywhere. 

No Confederate soldier who was on and of that fearful 
retreat can fail to recall it as one of the most trying ex¬ 
periences of his life. Trying enough, in the mere fact that 
the Army of Northern Virginia was flying before its foes, 
but further trying, incomparably trying, in lack of food and 
rest and sleep, and because of the audacious pressure of the 
enemy’s cavalry. The combined and continued strain of all 
this upon soft garrison troops, unenured to labor and hard¬ 
ship and privation and peril, can hardly be conceived and 
cannot be described. Its two most serious effects were 
drowsiness and nervousness. We crossed and left James 
River at midnight on Sunday, were captured at Sailor’s 
Creek about sundown on the Thursday following, and I 
think rations were issued to us that night by our captors. I 
do not say there was only one, but I recall only one issue of 


THE RETREAT 


3 2 7 


rations between those limits, and we were marching all day 
and, as I remember, a large part of every night. 

The somewhat disorganized condition of the troops and 
the crowded condition of the roads necessitated frequent 
halts, and whenever these occurred—especially after night¬ 
fall—the men would drop in the road, or on the side of it, 
and sleep until they were roused, and it was manifestly im¬ 
possible to rouse them all. My two horses were in almost 
constant use to transport officers and men who had given 
out, especially our doctor, whose horse was for some rea¬ 
son unavailable. Besides, I preferred to be on foot, for the 
very purpose of moving around among the men and rousing 
them when we resumed the march. With this view I was a 
good part of the time at the rear of the battalion; but not¬ 
withstanding my efforts in this respect, individually and 
through a detail of men selected and organized for the pur¬ 
pose of waking the sleepers, we lost, I am satisfied, every 
time we resumed the march after a halt at night—men who 
were not found or who could not be roused. 

The nervousness resulting from this constant strain of 
starvation, fatigue, and lack of sleep was a dangerous thing, 
at one time producing very lamentable results, which threat¬ 
ened to be even more serious than they were. One even¬ 
ing an officer, I think of one of our supply departments, 
passed and repassed us several times, riding a powerful, 
black stallion, all of whose furnishings—girths, reins, etc., 
—were very heavy, indicating the unmanageable character 
of the horse. When he rode ahead the last time, about 
dark, it seems that he imprudently hitched his horse by tying 
his very stout tie rein to a heavy fence rail which was part of 
the road fence. Something frightened the animal and he 
reared back, pulling the rail out of the fence and dragging 
it after him full gallop down the road crowded with troops, 
mowing them down like the scythe of a war chariot. Some¬ 
one, thinking there was a charge of cavalry, fired his musket 
and, on the instant, three or four battalions, mine among 
them, began firing into each other. 

I was never more alarmed. Muskets were discharged in 
my very face, and I fully expected to be shot down; but 


328 


FOUR YEARS UNDER MARSE ROBERT 


after the most trying and perilous experience, the command¬ 
ing officers succeeded in getting control of their men and 
getting them again into formation. But while we were talk¬ 
ing to them, suddenly the panic seized them again, and they 
rushed in such a wild rout against the heavy road fence that 
they swept it away, and many of them took to the woods, 
firing back as they ran. A second time the excitement was 
quieted and a third time it broke out. By this time, how¬ 
ever, I had fully explained to my men that we had just put 
out fresh flankers on both sides of the road, that we could 
not have an attack of cavalry without warning from them, 
and that the safe and soldierly thing to do was to lie down 
until everything should become calm. I was much pleased 
that this third time my command did not fire a shot, while 
the battalions in our front and rear were firing heavily. A 
field officer and a good many other officers and men were 
killed and wounded in these alarms, just how many I do not 
believe was ever ascertained. 

When we next halted for any length of time, during day¬ 
light, I formed my men and talked to them fully and quietly 
about these alarms, explaining the folly of their firing, and 
impressing upon them simply to lie down, keep quiet, and 
attempt to catch and obey promptly any special orders I 
might give. I complimented them upon their having resisted 
the panicky infection the last time it broke out, and felt that, 
upon the whole, my men had gained rather than lost by 
the experience. 

On Thursday afternoon we had descended into a moist, 
green little valley, crossed a small stream called Sailor’s 
Creek, and, ascending a gentle, grassy slope beyond it, had 
halted, and the men were lying down and resting in the edge 
of a pine wood that crowned the elevation. A desultory 
fire was going on ahead and bullets began to drop in. I 
was walking about among the men, seeing that everything 
was in order and talking cheerfully with them, when I heard 
a ball strike something hard and saw a little commotion 
around the battalion colors. Going there, I found that the 
flag-staff had been splintered, and called out to the men that 
we were beginning to make a record. 


THE RETREAT 


329 


Next moment I heard an outcry—“.There, Brookin is 
killed!”—and saw one of the men writhing on the ground. 
I went to him. He seemed to be partially paralyzed below 
the waist, but said he was shot through the neck. I saw no 
blood anywhere. He had on his roll of blankets and, sure 
enough, a ball had gone through them and also through his 
jacket and flannel shirt; but there it was, sticking in the 
back of his neck, having barely broken the skin. I took it 
out and said: “O, you are not a dead man by a good deal. 
Here,”—handing the ball to him,—“take that home and give 
it to your sweetheart. It’ll fix you all right.” Brookin 
caught at the ball and held it tightly clasped in his hand, 
smiling faintly, and the men about him laughed. 

Just then I heard a shell whizzing over us, coming from 
across the creek, and we were hurried into line facing in that 
direction, that is, to the rear. I inferred, of course, that we 
were surrounded, but could not tell how strong the force 
was upon which we were turning our backs. 

I remember, in all the discomfort and wretchedness of the 
retreat, we had been no little amused by the Naval Battalion, 
under that old hero, Admiral Tucker. The soldiers called 
them the “Aye, Ayes,” because they responded “aye, aye” 
to every order, sometimes repeating the order itself, and add¬ 
ing, “Aye, aye, it is, sir!” As this battalion, which followed 
immediately after ours, was getting into position, and sea¬ 
men’s and landsmen’s jargon and movements were getting 
a good deal mixed in the orders and evolutions,—all being 
harmonized, however, and licked into shape by the “aye, 
aye,”—a young officer of the division staff rode up, saluted 
Admiral Tucker, and said: “Admiral, I may possibly be of 
assistance to you in getting your command into line.” The 
Admiral replied: “Young man, I understand how to talk 
to my peopleand thereupon followed “a grand moral com¬ 
bination” of “right flank” and “left flank,” “starboard” and 
“larboard,” “aye, aye” and “aye, aye”—until the battalion 
gradually settled down into place. 

By this time a large Federal force had deployed into line 
on the other slope beyond the creek, which we had left not 
long since; two or three lines of battle, and a heavy 


330 


FOUR YEARS UNDER MARSE ROBERT 


park of artillery, which rapidly came into battery and open¬ 
ed an accurate and deadly fire, we having no guns with 
which to reply and thus disturb their aim. My men were 
lying down and were ordered not to expose themselves. I 
was walking backward and forward just back of the line, 
talking to them whenever that was practicable, and keeping 
my eye upon everything, feeling that such action and ex¬ 
posure on my part were imperatively demanded by the his¬ 
tory and condition of the command and my rather peculiar 
relations to it. A good many had been wounded and several 
killed, when a twenty-pounder Parrott shell struck immedi¬ 
ately in my front, on the line, nearly severing a man in twain, 
and hurling him bodily over my head, his arms hanging 
down and his hands almost slapping me in the face as they 
passed. 

In that one awful moment I distinctly recognized young 
Blount, who had gazed into my face so intently Sunday 
night; and but for that peculiar paralysis which in battle 
sometimes passes upon a man’s entire being—excepting only 
his fighting powers—the recognition might have been too 
much for me. 

In a few moments the artillery fire ceased and I had time 
to glance about me and note results a little more carefully. 
I had seldom seen a fire more accurate, nor one that had 
been more deadly, in a single regiment, in so brief a time. 
The expression of the men’s faces indicated clearly enough 
its effect upon them. They did not appear to be hopelessly 
demoralized, but they did look blanched and haggard and 
awe-struck. 

The Federal infantry had crossed the creek and were now 
coming up the slope in two lines of battle. I stepped in front 
of my line and passed from end to end, impressing upon my 
men that no one must fire his musket until I so ordered; that 
when I said “ready” they must all rise, kneeling on the right 
knee; that when I said “aim” they must all aim about the 
knees of the advancing line; that when I said “fire” they 
must all fire together, and that it was all-important they 
should follow these directions exactly, and obey, implicitly 
and instantly, any other instructions or orders I might 
give. 


THE RETREAT 


331 


The enemy was coming on and everything was still as the 
grave. My battalion was formed upon and around a swell 
of the hill, which threw it further to the front than any other 
command in the division, so that I was compelled to shape 
my own course, as I had received no special orders. The 
Federal officers, knowing, as I suppose, that we were sur¬ 
rounded, and appreciating the fearful havoc their artillery 
fire had wrought, evidently expected us to surrender and 
had their white handkerchiefs in their hands, waving them 
toward us, as if suggesting this course; and yet, so far as I 
remember, they did not call upon us to surrender. I do not 
recall any parallel to this action. 

I dislike to break the flow and force of the narrative by 
repeated modifying references to recollection and memory; 
but it is not safe for a man, so many years after the event, 
to be positive with regard to details unless there was spe¬ 
cial reason why they should have been impressed upon him 
at the time. I will say, then, that my memory records no 
musket shot on either side up to this time, our skirmishers 
having retired upon the main line without firing. The enemy 
showed no disposition to break into the charge, but continued 
to advance in the same deliberate and even hesitating man¬ 
ner, and I allowed them to approach very close—I should be 
afraid to say just how close—before retiring behind my men. 
I had continued to walk along their front for the very pur¬ 
pose of preventing them from opening fire; but now I 
stepped through the line, and, stationing myself about the 
middle of it, called out my orders deliberately—the enemy, I 
am satisfied, hearing every word. “Ready!” To my great 
delight the men rose, all together, like a piece of mechanism, 
kneeling on their right knees and their faces set with an ex¬ 
pression that meant—everything. “Aim!” The musket 
barrels fell to an almost perfect horizontal line leveled about 
the knees of the advancing front line. “Fire!” 

I have never seen such an effect, physical and moral, pro¬ 
duced by the utterance of one word. The enemy seemed 
to have been totally unprepared for it, and, as the sequel 
showed, my own men scarcely less so. The earth appeared 
to have swallowed up the first line of the Federal force in our 


33 2 FOUR YEARS UNDER MARSE ROBERT 

front. There was a rattling supplement to the volley and the 
second line wavered and broke. 

The revulsion was too sudden. On the instant every man 
in my battalion sprang to his feet and, without orders, rush¬ 
ed, bareheaded and with unloaded muskets, down the slope 
after the retreating Federals. I tried to stop them, but in 
vain, although I actually got ahead of a good many of them. 
They simply bore me on with the flood. 

The standard-bearer was dashing by me, colors in hand, 
when I managed to catch his roll of blankets and jerk him 
violently back, demanding what he meant, advancing the 
battalion colors without orders. As I was speaking, the 
artillery opened fire again and he was hurled to the earth, 
as I supposed, dead. I stooped to pick up the flag, when his 
brother, a lieutenant, a fine officer and a splendid-looking fel¬ 
low, stepped over the body, saying: “Those colors belong 
to me, Major!” at the same time taking hold of the staff. 
He was shot through the brain and fell backward. One 
of the color guard sprang forward, saying: “Give them to 
me, Major!” But by the time his hand reached the staff he 
was down. There were at least five men dead and wounded 
lying close about me, and I did not see why I should continue 
to make a target of myself. I therefore jammed the color 
staff down through a thick bush, which supported it in an 
upright position, and turned my attention to my battalion, 
which was scattered over the face of the hill firing irregu¬ 
larly at the Federals, who seemed to be reforming to renew 
the attack. I managed to get my men into some sort of 
formation and their guns loaded, and then charged the Fed¬ 
eral line, driving it back across the creek, and forming my 
command behind a little ridge, which protected it somewhat. 

I ran back up the hill and had a brief conversation with 
General Custis Lee,—commanding the division, our brigade 
commander having been killed,—explaining to him that I 
had not ordered the advance and that we would be cut off 
if we remained long where we were, but that I was satisfied 
I could bring the battalion back through a ravine, which 
would protect them largely from the fire of the enemy’s ar¬ 
tillery, and reform them on the old line, on the right of the 


THE RETREAT 


333 


naval battalion, which had remained in position. He ex¬ 
pressed his doubts as to this, but I told him I believed my 
battalion would follow me anywhere, and with his permis¬ 
sion I would try it. I ran down the hill again and explained 
to my men that when I got to the left of the line and shouted 
to them they were to get up and follow me, on a run and 
without special formation, through a ravine that led back to 
the top of the hill. Just because these simple-hearted fellows 
knew only enough to trust me, and because the enemy was 
not so far recovered as to take advantage of our exposure 
while executing the movement to the rear and reforming, 
we were back in the original lines in a few moments—that 
is, all who were left of us. 

It was of no avail. By the time we had well settled into 
our old position we were attacked simultaneously, front and 
rear, by overwhelming numbers, and quicker than I can tell 
it the battle degenerated into a butchery and a confused 
melee of brutal personal conflicts. I saw numbers of men 
kill each other with bayonets and the butts of muskets, and 
even bite each others’ throats and ears and noses, rolling 
on the ground like wild beasts. I saw one of my officers 
and a Federal officer fighting with swords over the battalion 
colors, which we had brought back with us, each having his 
left hand upon the staff. I could not get to them, but my 
man was a very athletic, powerful seaman, and soon I saw 
the Federal officer fall. 

I had cautioned my men against wearing “Yankee over¬ 
coats,” especially in battle, but had not been able to enforce 
the order perfectly—and almost at my side I saw a 
young fellow of one of my companies jam the muzzle of his 
musket against the back of the head of his most intimate 
friend, clad in a Yankee overcoat, and blow his brains out. 
I was wedged in between fighting men, only my right arm 
free. I tried to strike the musket barrel up, but alas, my 
sword had been broken in the clash and I could not reach it. 
I well remember the yell of demoniac triumph with which 
that simple country lad of yesterday clubbed his musket and 
whirled savagely upon another victim. 

I don’t think I ever suffered more than during the few 
moments after I saw that nothing could possibly affect 


334 FOUR YEARS UNDER MARSE ROBERT 

or change the result of the battle. I could not let myself de¬ 
generate into a mere fighting brute or devil, because the 
lives of these poor fellows were, in some sense, in my hand, 
though there was nothing I could do just then to shield or 
save them. Suddenly, by one of those inexplicable shift- 
ings which take place on a battle-field, the fighting around 
me almost entirely ceased, and whereas the moment before 
the whole environment seemed to be crowded with the enemy, 
there were now few or none of them on the spot, and as the 
slaughter and the firing seemed to be pretty well over, I 
concluded I would try to make my escape. By the way, I 
had always considered it likely I should be killed, but had 
never anticipated or contemplated capture. 

I think it was at this juncture I encountered General Cus- 
tis Lee, but it may have been after I was picked up. At all 
events, selecting the direction which seemed to be most free 
from Federal soldiers and to offer the best chance of es¬ 
cape, I started first at a walk and then broke into a run; 
but in a short distance ran into a fresh Federal force, and 
it seemed the most natural and easy thing in the world to 
be simply arrested and taken in. My recollection is that 
General Lee asked to be carried before the Federal general 
commanding on that part of the line, who, at his request, 
gave orders putting a stop to the firing, there being no or¬ 
ganized Confederate force on the field. Thus ended my ac¬ 
tive life as a Confederate soldier, my four years’ service 
under Marse Robert, and I was not sorry to end it thus, in 
red-hot battle, and to be spared the pain, I will not say 
humiliation, of Appomattox. 

I must, however, mention an incident to which I have 
already briefly referred, to which it would perhaps have been 
more delicate not to refer at all; but the reader of this chap¬ 
ter can scarcely have failed to perceive that one of the most 
deeply stirring episodes in my soldier life was the struggle 
I made to lift my battalion out of the demoralization in 
which I found it; to make my men trust and love me, and 
to rouse and develop in them the true conception of sol¬ 
dierly duty and devotion, courage and endurance. 

Looking back upon the teeming recollections of this first 
and last retreat and this final battle of the Army of North- 


THE RETREAT 


335 


ern Virginia, amid all the overpowering sadness and depres¬ 
sion of defeat, I already felt the sustaining consciousness of 
a real and a worthy success; but it is impossible to express 
how this consciousness was deepened and heightened when 
General Ewell sent for me on the field, after we were all 
captured, and in the presence of half a dozen generals said 
that he had summoned me to say, in the hearing of these of¬ 
ficers, that the conduct of my battalion had been reported to 
him, and that he desired to congratulate me and them upon 
the record they had made. 


CHAPTER XXIV 


FATAL MISTAKE OF THE CONFEDERATE MILITARY 
AUTHORITIES 

The Love of Glory the Inspiration of the Soldier—Prompt Promotion 
the Life of an Army—How Napoleon Applied these Principles— 
How the Controlling Military Authorities of the Confederacy Ig¬ 
nored Them—The Material of the Confederate Armies Superb, 
Their Development as Soldiers Neglected—Decoration for Gal¬ 
lantry, and Promotion on the Field Unknown in the Confederate 
Service—Lee Himself Without Authority to Confer Such Pro¬ 
motion or Distinction—Contrasted Spirit and Practice of the 
Federal Authorities and Armies—Grotesque Absurdity of an 
Elective Roll of Military Honor. 

If asked what I regarded as the most fatal mistake of 
the military authorities of the Confederacy, I should un¬ 
hesitatingly answer—their utter and amazing failure to ap¬ 
preciate the distinctive inspiration of the soldier, the inform¬ 
ing spirit of an army. That spirit, that inspiration, is best 
expressed in the one word “Promotion”—promotion on the 
spot, “on the field;” instant, responsive, rapid promotion. 

I do not deny the existence of other great principles and 
forces, fundamental and formative, in the life of the sol¬ 
dier. On the contrary, I thoroughly believe in and appre¬ 
ciate them, and shall take pleasure in pointing them out in 
the last chapter of this work; but I do say that the great 
element of progress and development in the military life is 
the desire for promotion, or at least, for honorable distinc¬ 
tion in the profession. 

I do not hesitate to say the soldier cannot be highly de¬ 
veloped without this influence. The true soldier is ever look¬ 
ing for opportunities to earn promotion or distinction, and 
the true general ever on the lookout to reward men who 
have well earned the one or the other. This is the way—I 


FATAL MISTAKE OF THE CONFEDERATES 337 

am willing to say, the only way—to make a soldier or an 
army and to develop both to the highest point of effective¬ 
ness. 

Probably the greatest master of the art of war, in an¬ 
cient or modern times, was the first Napoleon, and his army 
—if not the best that ever marched or fought—certainly 
reached a height of resistless power that alarmed and for a 
time dominated Europe. 

It is well known how largely he made use of and relied 
upon the element we are now considering, and which we 
may as well characterize plainly as the love of glory. Count¬ 
less stories are told illustrating how he stimulated this natu¬ 
ral desire, until it became the one passionate thirst of his sol¬ 
diers. They enjoyed the privilege of unrestrained access 
to him at all times, and he encouraged them to address him 
as “Sire.” 

In one of his greatest battles he occupied a commanding 
height from which, mounted on his favorite war horse and 
surrounded by a magnificent staff, he overlooked the drawn 
fight that hung in the balance on the plain below; striving, 
through the battle smoke, to analyze the field and to deter¬ 
mine where to deliver his final blow. He was sitting deep 
in the saddle and deeply absorbed, when a young infantry 
soldier, from one of his favorite regiments, pressed through 
the gorgeous uniforms and prancing steeds of the staff until, 
pale, haggard, bloody, powder-begrimed, he reached the 
Emperor’s side, and slapping his hand smartly upon his 
thigh, pointed eagerly to a particular part of the field and 
said: “Sire, send a strong column there, and the day is 
ours!” 

Napoleon, startled from his reverie, turned and looked 
upon the hatless, breathless, but inspired boy; then breaking 
into a smile of appreciation and delight, and shaking his 
finger at him, burst out: “You little devil! Who told you 
my secret ? Go back to your regiment, sir!” 

The column was hurled upon the weak point the two Napo¬ 
leons had detected; the victory was won, and the victor rode 
over to the spot where the fatal thrust had been made—and 
there, just where the head of the French column had pierced 


22 


33» 


FOUR YEARS UNDER MARSE ROBERT 


the hostile line, lay that peerless youth with a bullet through 
his brain, but the light of battle and of victory glorifying his 
countenance. The Emperor turned pale and reeled in his 
saddle, but quickly recovering, gazed yearningly at the dead 
hero, and with bitter emphasis exclaimed, “But for that ac¬ 
cursed bullet, there lies a Marshal of France!” 

Another illustration occurs to me. 

On a rapid march through an unfamiliar region the head 
of his column halted on the bank of a river, and the Em¬ 
peror, turning to the ranking engineer officer present, de¬ 
manded to know its width. The colonel said he could not 
tell; but the Emperor instantly replied: 

“But I must know.” 

“The instruments are in the rear, sire. I cannot tell 
without the instruments.” 

“I said nothing about instruments; I asked the width of 
this river, and I must be told.” 

“Sire, no one can tell without the instruments,” said the 
colonel. 

At this moment a young lieutenant of engineers stepped 
forward and saluted, saying: 

“Sire, I think I can tell you near enough for all practical 
purposes, the width of the stream.” 

“Tell me then, sir!” 

The lieutenant advanced to the edge of the water and 
faced the other shore. Drawing down the visor of his cap 
until it just cut the further brink, he turned his head—taking 
care to keep his chin at the same level—until the cap brim 
struck the bank they were on. Then, again addressing the 
Emperor, he said: 

“Sire, let them measure the distance from here to yonder 
barn and you will have approximately the width of the 
river.” 

Recognizing the resource and quickness of the young of¬ 
ficer, Napoleon ordered the immediate exchange of rank, 
making the lieutenant a colonel and the colonel a lieutenant, 
on the spot. 

These incidents require not one word, by way either of 
explanation or of emphasis. It is easy to see, indeed it 


FATAL MISTAKE OF THE CONFEDERATES 339 

would seem impossible not to see, how such instant, re¬ 
sponsive, public recognition and reward of merit and of 
service must inspire and develop an army. 

What I mean to assert is that the Confederate military 
authorities—that is, the governing authorities—did abso¬ 
lutely nothing, in this general direction; that we did not 
have, as General Hooker and other Federal generals testi¬ 
fied, material originally inferior which we toned up by ad¬ 
mirable training and discipline; but, on the contrary, that 
the material of our armies, the bulk of our rank and file, 
was as fine as the world ever saw, as full of military capacity 
and aptitude and ambition, and that we steadily toned down 
this superb material by habitual neglect of what is most es¬ 
sential to the development of the soldier. 

It is needless to say that the Army of Northern Virginia 
was under a leadership in the field as developing and up¬ 
lifting as soldiers ever followed; but, with this exception, 
all things were against us. The controlling military authori¬ 
ties seem to have relied entirely upon the patriotism and 
character of the individual men, and did nothing to make 
them soldiers, or to make the aggregation of them an army. 
Any one of us might perform prodigies of valor, no one 
ever noticed it; or exhibit the most decided and even bril¬ 
liant capacities for command or advancement, the advance¬ 
ment or command might never come. 

Take the case of Lieutenant Falligant at Cold Harbor, 
already mentioned. Our battalion report set forth his splen¬ 
did conduct in detail; General Kershaw, commanding our 
division, was full of enthusiastic admiration, and promised 
—and I have no doubt fulfilled his promise—to press Falli- 
gant’s promotion; yet no notice was ever taken of the mat¬ 
ter. If Falligant had done in Napoleon’s army precisely 
what he did in the Army of Northern Virginia I have no 
doubt he would have been decorated on the field and pro¬ 
moted to be full colonel of artillery. He was a second lieu¬ 
tenant when he rendered his superb service at Cold Harbor, 
9 64. If I mistake not, he was a second lieutenant at Ap¬ 
pomattox. 

I think it was at Suffolk that a private soldier in one of 
the regiments of the Confederate force investing the place 


34 ° FOUR YEARS UNDER MARSE ROBERT 

proposed, and alone and single-handed, executed a brilliant 
and daring plan, which completely rid the investing force 
of the galling fire of sharpshooters concealed in tall, dry 
grass on the other side of a deep stream. 

This gallant and ingenious fellow, when the wind was 
blowing from our side toward the enemy’s, procured a 
long, thick plank, with which he entered the water, lying 
breast down on one end of the plank, which of course in¬ 
clined the other end upward, making a sort of protection 
for him and especially for his head. Thus equipped, he 
paddled across the stream to a point projecting out toward 
our shore, and where the dry grass stood high above water 
so deep that the sharpshooters could not approach near it, 
and there, and as far up and down the stream as he could 
venture, he set fire to the grass. The flames spread rapidly, 
and the daring incendiary, taking advantage of the flight 
and confusion of the sharpshooters, swam safely back to 
our side of the stream. 

The force was entirely relieved from the annoying and de¬ 
structive fire, but their heroic deliverer was, as usual, over¬ 
looked and neglected. 

I am not sure that the Federal military authorities fully 
recognized the principles we have been discussing, but they 
certainly contrasted very strongly with ours in this respect. 

After the battle of Chickamauga Longstreet sent to Rich¬ 
mond a number of Federal flags captured by his men in 
the engagement, in charge of a party consisting of several 
private soldiers, two or three non-commissioned officers, and 
a lieutenant or two, who had specially distinguished them¬ 
selves in the capture of the banners. They were met at the 
depot by a negro with a one-horse wagon, into which the 
captured banners were dumped, and in which they were 
hauled to the Capitol—and the men received transportation 
back to the army. Of course they were laughing-stocks 
to their fellows, and felt the deep sting of the lesson that gal¬ 
lant conduct is a matter beneath notice. 

About the same time I read in the Northern papers an 
account of the reception accorded a similar party of Fed¬ 
eral soldiers, sent upon a like errand, to Washington. As 


FATAL MISTAKE OF THE CONFEDERATES 34 1 

I remember, they were received by the full Cabinet, assem¬ 
bled in the War Department. The line officers were made 
majors and colonels, the non-commissioned officers received 
commissions, and the privates had the chevrons of sergeants 
and corporals sewed upon their coatsleeves. Of course they 
returned to their army, themselves heroes and inspirers of 
heroic deeds among their comrades. 

When I was captured and passed through Grant’s army I 
felt as if I had entered a new world. The non-commis¬ 
sioned officer who was first to reach me, as we were walking 
to find the Federal officer commanding on that part of the 
line, rattled off to me his military history, which was at his 
tongue’s end. 

“Major,” said he, “you’ve helped me to my shoulder 
straps. You make the fifth field officer I’ve been the first 
man to reach; twice my hand has been first on captured 
cannon. You see that man yonder ? He’s a private soldier 
still, because he hasn’t the mind or education to make an 
officer, and he knows it and don’t want a commission; but 
look at his medals and decorations. There ain’t a general 
officer in the corps but touches his hat to him.” 

And so it seemed to be with all the men I saw. Each 
appeared fully aware of the amount of good conduct laid 
up to his credit, and yearning for opportunity to win further 
distinction. 

There was nothing approximating this in our service. I 
can truly say,—and thousands of my old comrades can 
say with me,—I never saw or heard of a medal or a ribbon 
being pinned on a man’s jacket, or even so much as a man’s 
name being read out publicly in orders for gallantry in bat¬ 
tle. With some of us, at least, it would have gone far to 
atone for having nothing put inside our stomachs if we had 
had a red ribbon or some such thing pinned outside our 
jackets. Not only did I never see or hear of a promotion on 
the field, but I do not believe such a thing ever occurred in 
any army of the Confederacy, from the beginning to the end 
of the war. Indeed, I am confident it never did; for, in¬ 
credible as it may appear, even Lee himself did not have the 
power to make such a promotion. On page 147 of his book, 
Colonel Taylor, the Adjutant-General of his army, says: 


34 2 FOUR YEARS UNDER MARSE ROBERT 

General Lee should have been supreme in all matters touching the 
movements and discipline of his Army; whereas, under the law and the 
regulations of the Department of War made in conformity thereto, 
he had not even the power to confer promotion on the field of battle. 

I have myself heard other prominent Confederate leaders 
complain of their utter powerlessness in this regard, and it 
is generally understood that Jackson more than once threat¬ 
ened to resign if he should be further interfered with in 
“putting down one and setting up another” of the officers 
and men of his command. 

In short, the error and defect upon which I am comment¬ 
ing was too glaring to be denied, but I have heard it apolo¬ 
gized for upon the ground that deeds of gallantry were so 
common in the Confederate armies and especially in the 
Army of Northern Virginia, that they could not with pro¬ 
priety be recognized or rewarded as “distinguished.” This 
is worse than absurd. No matter how high the average, 
some men and some deeds necessarily rose above it. Be¬ 
sides, men were sometimes promoted for gallantry in our 
service, and even in Lee’s glorious army; but the point is, 
the promotion lagged and followed afar off—so far that, 
before the tardy recognition came, men had forgotten the 
heroic deeds that forced it, and the effect was almost, if not 
altogether, lost. 

May I be pardoned for referring to my personal expe¬ 
rience in this regard, amongst the bitterest of my life. I 
was recommended for promotion for conduct at “The Sa¬ 
lient,” that is, “The Bloody Angle,” of Spottsylvania, of the 
12th of May, ’64; and the promotion came, but more than 
six months later, and then the commission gave me rank, not 
from the date of the engagement , but from the date of its 
issue; nor was there upon its face the slightest reference to 
or connection with the glorious 12th of May. I do not think 
I was ever so disappointed and indignant. I never saw the 
commission again; my recollection is that I tore it to tatters. 
I presume it is, in part at least, to the delay in issuing this 
commission that I am indebted for the additional wrong 
that my name is not mentioned in the only published list, so 
far as I know, of the field officers of the Confederate armies. 


FATAL MISTAKE OF THE CONFEDERATES 343 

If anything were needed to accentuate the dismal failure 
of the military authorities of the Confederacy, in the general 
field of the inspiration and development of the soldier, it 
would be abundantly supplied by the remarkable record of 
the only attempt they ever made, so far as I am informed, 
in that direction. This attempt was embodied in an Act of 
the Congress of the Confederate States, approved October 
13, 1862, and several orders of the Adjutant and Inspector- 
General’s office: No. 93, of November 22, 1862; No. 31, of 
October 3, 1863, and No. 64, of August 10, 1864—all to be 
found in War Records, Series I., Vol. xxx., Part 2, Re¬ 
ports, pages 532 and 533. 

The title of the Act is promising, and is as follows: 
“An Act to authorize the grant of medals and badges of dis¬ 
tinction, as a reward for courage and good conduct on the 
field of battle;” but the outline of the scheme is grievously 
disappointing. 

“The President,” and not the general commanding in the 
field, was authorized to confer the medals and badges; so 
that, even without the distinct reference in the orders to 
“the regular channels,” it is obvious that, in practical opera¬ 
tion, the plan would fail utterly of that rapid, responsive 
recognition and reward wherein consist the life and power 
of decoration and promotion “on the field.” 

Again, the Act provided for conferring “a badge of dis¬ 
tinction upon one private or non-commissioned officer of 
each company, after every signal victory it shall have as¬ 
sisted to achieve.” Thus, by reason of the number to be 
decorated, the decoration would, of necessity, cease to be a 
distinction, and the scheme must, as it did, break down of 
its own weight, to say nothing of its other inherent defects. 

Perhaps the most glaring of these was the mode of se¬ 
lecting the men who were to be recipients of the badges. It 
is expressly provided in the Act that: “The non-commis¬ 
sioned officers and privates of the company who may be pres¬ 
ent on the first dress-parade thereafter (that is, ‘after every 
signal victory’) may choose, by a majority of their votes, 
the soldier best entitled to receive such distinction.” Could 
there be devised a more shocking travesty upon the essen- 


344 FOUR YEARS UNDER MARSE ROBERT 

tial law and character of military promotion or reward and 
the appropriate mode of conferring it ? Such promotion or 
recognition means, of course, and exclusively, recognition 
or promotion from above; by the determination, that is, of 
one’s superior or commanding officer. To substitute in 
place of this the ballot of one’s fellows is a monstrous perver¬ 
sion—so monstrous as to be incredible but for the absolute 
proofs we have submitted. It was bad enough to provide 
for election to military office; but to elect the bravest man 
in the command is an incongruity still more extreme. 

And yet there is one feature of this remarkable statute 
even more exaggerated and grotesque. The entire scheme 
had been delayed a year or more because of the difficulty or 
expense of procuring the medals and badges, and an elective 
“Roll of Honor” was the ingenious substituted device of 
someone to bridge over the difficulty. In the order of 
August io, ’64, it was provided that: “Should more than 
one soldier hereafter be selected by a company as equal in 
merit, the name to be entered upon the roll will be deter¬ 
mined by lot.” The imagination staggers at the task of 
picturing the scene where two elected heroes proceeded to 
draw straws to determine which of the twain should be en¬ 
rolled among the immortals. 

Was there ever enacted by a legislative body, or carried 
into effect by an executive office, a more utterly impotent 
scheme or as grim a farce? It seems almost beyond belief, 
but there it is, in black and white; and it was actually put 
into operation in some of our armies. It may have been to 
some extent operative in the Army of Northern Virginia; 
but I have yet to meet a soldier of that army who claimed 
the honor of having had his name entered upon this Elective 
Roll of Honor, this Roll of Elected Heroes, or who had 
even so much as heard of such a roll, although it was ex¬ 
pressly ordered that the roll be read “at the head of every 
regiment in the service of the Confederate States.” 

I say again, the invention of such a scheme only accentu¬ 
ates the pitiful failure of the Confederate military authori¬ 
ties to put into operation the noble, healthful, inspiring law 
and practice of genuine military recognition and promotion 


FATAL MISTAKE OF THE CONFEDERATES 


345 


on the held. And I say further, that I believe this failure 
had as much to do with the failure of our cause as any other 
—yes, even more, than any and all other forces and influ¬ 
ences, save and except, perhaps, the overwhelming material 
force arrayed against us. 


CHAPTER XXV 

POTPOURRI 

Startling Figures as to the Numbers and Losses of the Federal Armies 
During the War—Demoralizing Influence of Earth-works—Attri¬ 
tion and Starvation—Lack of Sleep vs. Lack of Food—Night Blind¬ 
ness in the Army of Northern Virginia—Desertions from the Con¬ 
federate Armies—Prison Life—DeForest Medal—Gen. Lee’s Hat. 

Some years ago, during the discussion of the pension 
legislation of Congress, the following statements, substan¬ 
tially, were published at Washington in The National Tri¬ 
bune of May 16, 1889. We do not vouch for their accu¬ 
racy, but there is truth enough in the figures to make them 
valuable, and power enough to startle the thoughtful reader. 

The article asserts that the Federal force invading the 
South from ’6i to ’65 was fully twice as large as was ever 
put afield by any other modern nation, and that it contested 
more battles, did more fighting, and lost more- in killed and 
wounded than all the armies of modern Europe in the last 
three-quarters of a century, that is, since the close of the 
Napoleonic wars in 1815. 

It states that 2,320,272 men served an average of three 
years during our war; that no other war of the century has 
lasted so long or been filled with such continuous and san¬ 
guinary fighting; that 2,261 battles and skirmishes were 
fought, many of them more destructive of human life than 
any other battles in modern history; that over 400,000 men 
lost their lives in the struggle—that is, double the number 
of the entire army of Great Britain, 143,000 more than that 
of Austro-Hungary; more than Napoleon arrayed against 
the coalition of England, Russia, Prussia, Sweden and 


POTPOURRI 


347 


Spain; and twice as many as he had when he began his Wa¬ 
terloo campaign. The article closes with these words: 

“Our war lasted nearly seven times as long as the Franco- 
Prussian struggle, and we lost over six times as many killed 
on the field of battle as the Germans lost in overrunning the 
whole of France.” 

As I understand, the above figures represent the number 
and losses of the Federal armies alone. If so, what a story 
they tell of the fighting power of the little Confederacy, cut 
off from the world in its death grapple, opposing the great 
hosts of the Union with less than one-third their numbers, 
and meeting, among the overwhelming myriads of its foes, 
more imported foreigners than the entire number of the na¬ 
tive soldiers of the South. 

In my account of the campaign of ’64, especially of 
Spottsylvania and Cold Harbor, in noting our first real ex¬ 
perience of fighting “in the trenches” and behind “works,” 
I failed to mention its tendency to demoralize the men. 

The protection of a little pile of earth being in front of a 
man and between him and his enemy, his natural tendency 
is to stay behind it, not only as to part, but as to the whole 
of his person. I have more than once seen men behind such 
a line fire their muskets without so much as raising their 
heads above the curtain of earth in front of them; fire, in¬ 
deed, at such an inclination of their gun-barrels upward as 
to prevent the possibility of hitting an enemy unless that 
enemy were suspended in the sky or concealed in the tree 
tops. 

So greatly did this desire to fight behind protection in¬ 
crease that I have seen men begin digging every time the 
column halted, until their commanding officers declared that 
any man caught intrenching himself without orders should 
be punished severely. It is fair to say that, after a while, 
the better men of the army, at least, learned to use without 
abusing the vantage ground of earth-works. 

In commenting upon Grant's theory and plan of attrition, 
I should have added that one feature of it was to turn loose 
upon our armies and our homes the twin giant of stamation. 


348 FOUR YEARS UNDER MARSE ROBERT 

Especially was this the case after Sherman started through 
Georgia and our communications began to be cut by Fed¬ 
eral raiding parties in all directions. Sometime ago, I do 
not remember just how long, Mr. George Cary Eggleston, 
in a graphic paper upon the campaign of ’64, wrote in a 
very feeling and original way of the pains and pangs of 
hunger, and how deeply they depressed and deteriorated his 
entire being. I take no issue with him as to this statement, 
and yet, to me, even greater suffering and deterioration 
came from lack of sleep. I do not know that I have ever 
suffered more, physically and mentally, than from intense 
desire and demand of my whole being for deep, unbroken 
sleep, combined with inability to get more than a snatch at a 
time, which was almost worse than none at all. Such was 
frequently our experience, especially upon night marches 
and during long-continued battle. 

I am inclined to think my unusual muscular strength 
saved me from that general giving way which, in the case 
of most men, follows quickly upon lack of sufficient food; 
but on the other hand, I seemed to be peculiarly susceptible 
to the suffering, even torture and almost madness, which 
accompanies or follows lack of sleep. I believe it was Na¬ 
poleon who defined a soldier to be a man who could eat and 
sleep in one day for three. My army experience inclines me 
to say that a better definition could scarcely be framed, at 
least on the purely physical side. 

Perhaps the most peculiar and striking fact or feature of 
the physical condition of General Lee’s army during the lat¬ 
ter half of the war was night blindness—the men affected 
being unable to see after sunset, or a little later. 

I do not know what proportion of the men were so af¬ 
fected, but it is safe to say that thousands were. Many of 
them were as good and true men as any in the service; 
indeed, I have seen men led by the hand all night in order to 
go into battle with the command in the morning. 

The doctors tell us that these symptoms were to be ac¬ 
counted for as among the expressions of an anaemic and 
scorbutic condition, which itself resulted from lack of proper 
and sufficient nutrition. It would be interesting to know 


POTPOURRI 


349 


to what extent, if at all, the Federal armies were so affected. 
There may have been investigations and reports embodying 
this and other points of interest with regard to the matter, 
but, if so, I have never seen them. Indeed, my purpose is 
merely to record the fact, which I believe to be for the most 
part unknown even to the intelligent public of this gen¬ 
eration. 

There is one feature of our Confederate struggle, to which 
I have already made two or three indirect allusions, as to 
which there has been such a strange popular misapprehen¬ 
sion that I feel as if there rested upon the men who thor¬ 
oughly understand the situation a solemn obligation to 
bring out strongly and clearly the sound and true view of 
the matter. I refer to an impression, quite common, that 
the desertions front the Confederate armies, especially in the 
latter part of the war, indicated a general lack of devotion to 
the cause on the part of the men in the ranks. 

On the contrary, it is my deliberate conviction that South¬ 
ern soldiers who remained faithful under the unspeakable 
pressure of letters and messages revealing suffering, starva¬ 
tion, and despair at home, displayed a heroism and devotion 
well-nigh superhuman. 

The men who felt this strain most were husbands of young 
w T ives and fathers of young children, whom they had sup¬ 
ported by their labor, manual or mental. As the lines of 
communication in the Confederacy were more and more 
broken and destroyed, and the ability, both of county and 
public authorities and of neighbors, to aid them became 
less and less—the situation of such families became more and 
more desperate, and their appeals more and more piteous to 
their only earthly helpers who were far away, filling their 
places in “the thin gray line.” Meanwhile the enemy sent 
into our camps, often by our own pickets, circulars offering 
our men indefinite parole, with free transportation to their 
homes. 

I am not condemning the Federal Government or military 
authorities for making these offers or putting out these cir¬ 
culars; but if there was ever such a thing as a conflict of 
duties, that conflict was presented to the private soldiers of 


350 


FOUR YEARS UNDER MARSE ROBERT 


the Confederate army who belonged to the class just men¬ 
tioned, and who received, perhaps simultaneously, one of 
these home letters and one of these Federal circulars; and 
if ever the strain of such a conflict was great enough to 
unsettle a man’s reason and to break a man’s heart strings, 
these men were subjected to that strain. 

Ask any Confederate officer who commanded troops dur¬ 
ing the latter part of the war and who was loved and trusted 
by his men. He will tell you of letters which it would have 
seared your very eyeballs to read, but that they could not 
be read without tears—letters in which a wife and mother, 
crazed by her starving children’s cries for bread, required a 
husband and father to choose between his God-imposed obli¬ 
gations to her and to them and his allegiance to his country, 
his duty as a soldier; declaring that if the stronger party 
prove recreant to the marriage vow, the weaker will no 
longer be bound by it; that if he come not at once, he need 
never come; that she will never see him again nor recognize 
him as her husband or the father of her children. 

In order that it may be seen that I am not drawing an im¬ 
aginary or exaggerated picture, I quote from page 145 of 
Colonel Taylor’s “Four Years with General Lee”—a pas¬ 
sage which, by the way, I had not read until after I had 
penned the foregoing upon this topic. Says Colonel Taylor: 

A few words in regard to this desertion. The condition of affairs 
throughout the South at that period was thoroughly deplorable. Hun¬ 
dreds of letters addressed to soldiers were intercepted and sent to the 
Army Headquarters, in which mothers, wives and sisters told of their 
inability to respond to the appeals of hungry children for bread, or to 
provide proper care and remedies for the sick; and in the name of all 
that was true, appealed to the men to come home and rescue them from 
the ills which they suffered and the starvation which threatened them. 
Surely never was devotion to one’s country and to one’s duty more sorely 
tested than was the case with the soldiers of Lee’s army during the last 
year of the war. 

Many a noble officer, reading such a letter with a poor fel¬ 
low of his command at nightfall, has realized how entirely 
inadequate was the best sympathy, advice, and comfort he 


POTPOURRI 


351 


could give; and when, at next morning’s roll-call that man 
failed to answer to his name, has felt far more of pity than 
of condemnation. Soldiers would not prevent the departure 
of a comrade who was known to have received such a letter. 
Officers of courts-martial, compelled by sense of duty to 
order the execution as a deserter of a man absent without 
leave under such circumstances, have confessed to me that 
they shuddered, as if accessories before the fact to murder. 

Some years ago, cowering under a great rock on the edge 
of the Aletsch glacier, in an Alpine thunder-storm, with 
Prof. (Sir John) Tyndall, Lady Tyndall, and my brother- 
in-law, Professor Newton, of Yale University, I related a 
story which was told me by Dr. Hunter McGuire and other 
eye-witnesses, of Jackson’s agonized suffering, yet refusal 
to interfere with a death sentence imposed by a court-mar¬ 
tial, under circumstances such as I have described. Lady 
Tyndall shuddered and averted her face; but her husband, 
perceiving that she did so, said with emphasis: 

“My dear, awful as it was, Jackson was right;” then, 
turning to me, he added, “Mr. Stiles, God never made a 
greater or a righter human soul than Stonewall Jackson. 
No, sir, I do not believe it within the power—even of the 
Lord God Almighty—to make one!” 

In this general connection I cannot but refer with pride to 
the unshaken condition and magnificent record of my old 
battery, even on that fearful retreat from Richmond, and 
up to and at the very end. The evening before Sailor’s 
Creek we passed them on the road near Amelia Court 
House, and I was delighted to find their condition about as 
good as I ever saw it, and their mettle quite as high. They 
were better supplied than we, and, for the last time, I plun¬ 
dered Billy’s haversack for a morsel of food. 

As I have always understood, and believe to be true, 
they went down and passed into history, with the immortal 
Army of Northern Virginia, with all their men, save two, 
present for duty, or honorably accounted for. 

There are several minor and personal matters, more or 
less connected with my army experience, which I have been 
specially requested to touch upon. One of these is my prison 


352 FOUR YEARS UNDER MARSE ROBERT 

life. It may be that I shall deem this worthy of more ex¬ 
tended notice hereafter, so that for the present I shall confine 
myself to one or two points. 

When it was proposed to release the field officers at John¬ 
son’s Island, in the summer of 1865, I was one of those 
called upon by the prison authorities to aid in the preparation 
of the numerous requisite “papers,” and when, long after 
midnight, I handed in my batch, Major Lee, the courteous 
and kindly commandant of the post, when he had looked them 
over, said they were all right, except that I had been guilty 
of just such an omission as he would undertake to say had 
never before occurred, in like circumstances—that is, I 
had forgotten to prepare any paper for my own release. 

I assured him that he was mistaken, that I certainly had 
not overlooked my own case, and he hastily ran through 
his pile of papers again. 

“Yes, Major,” said he, “I am right. There are no papers 
here for you.” 

“True,” said I, “but you did not say there were no papers 
for me, but that I had forgotten to prepare any. In this 
you are in error. I did not forget—I never proposed to 
write any paper for myself—you see, I am not going to 
leave just yet. I have taken a great fancy to you and I 
propose to stay with you a while longer.” 

The commandant at first seemed to regard the matter as a 
joke; but when he found I really did not propose to submit 
any papers for my own release, he began to fear I had lost 
my mental balance, and sent me to my quarters, sending the 
post-surgeon after me, to see whether I was in normal con¬ 
dition. I assured the doctor, and he saw for himself, that I 
was perfectly sound in mind and body, and he so reported. 

The next day, as soon as the prisoners had left, Major 
Lee sent for me, and I explained to him that the oath de¬ 
manded of us entered into the domain of my convictions and 
feelings, requiring me to swear in substance that I aban¬ 
doned the “heresy of secession,” and regarded and would 
continue to regard the United States with patriotic devotion. 
I contended that the Government had nothing to do with the 
exercise of my intellect or affections, and that I could not 


POTPOURRI 


353 


myself voluntarily control their operations or conclusions; 
that I would never take an oath of the character of that de¬ 
manded, and did not feel disposed to take any oath whatever 
under duress and imprisonment; that, in fact, I questioned 
whether an oath exacted under such circumstances was le¬ 
gally valid; but that I preferred not to subject myself to the 
moral strain of toning down and whittling away the obli¬ 
gation of any oath I might take; that, indeed, as the war 
was, or seemed to be, practically over, with no organized 
Confederate force in the field, I ought to be released upon 
indefinite parole not to take up arms against the United 
States; but that I was willing to accept a brief parole, say 
of thirty days, conditioned at the expiration of that time to 
take the simple oath of allegiance or leave the country; that 
as at present advised and inclined, I would join any nation, 
or government, or people under Heaven—even the Hotten¬ 
tots—to fight against the United States, if there was a fair 
chance of success; but if allowed to go out and mingle 
freely with the people of the South, and especially of Vir¬ 
ginia, for a short time, and to see for myself that they had, 
as he assured me, given up all purpose and hope of inde¬ 
pendence, I might then be able to take the simple oath of al¬ 
legiance intelligently and honestly, and in case I did so 
might well prove a better, that is, a more reliable, citizen 
than some who had raised no such question of conscience. 

Major Lee was very kind and considerate. He attempted 
at first to reason me out of my position, and failing in that 
said he would incorporate the substance of what I had said 
in his report to the Government, and ask my release on pa¬ 
role; which he did, but the application was refused. He 
then suggested that perhaps I could formulate my own po¬ 
sition more clearly and strongly than he had done, and said 
he would forward any paper of that character I might pre¬ 
pare, and he furnished me with writing materials for the 
purpose. Of course, with my comrades all departed, there 
was a great calm, a melancholy stagnation in “the prison 
pen,” and I revelled for days, almost weeks, in applying my 
little knowledge of law and my large sympathy with “gen¬ 
eral principles” to the preparation of paper after paper on 
the laws of war, as related to my case, and bearing on my 

23 


354 FOUR YEARS UNDER MARSE ROBERT 

application to be released on parole. Suffice it to say these 
papers were all endorsed by Major Lee, “Respectfully for¬ 
warded approved’"—and all backed by the Commissary-Gen¬ 
eral of Prisoners, “Respectfully returned disapproved.” 

At last, however, Mrs. A. D. Egerton, a noble lady of 
Baltimore, and my sister,—having managed in some way to 
get hold of one of these papers, weeks after I had been re¬ 
moved from Johnson’s Island and incarcerated in a stone 
casemate in Fort Lafayette, in New York Harbor,—secured 
an interview with the Secretary of War, and Mr. Stanton 
endorsed the paper with his own hand. 

“Let this young officer have any parole he asks, condi¬ 
tioned, at its expiration, to take the oath or go back to 
prison” 

The big-brained, terrible man cut right through to my 
half-formed purpose of going to Maximilian—and he did 
not propose to leave any such loop-hole in the net in which 
the Government at the time held me fast. It is a pleasure to 
record this incident, to the honor of a man who gave few 
opportunities to the people of the South for kindly words or 
feelings. 

The iron door of my cell opened to these dear ladies, 
armed with this “ukase of the Czar,” and I walked forth a 
free man once more—that is, in a modified sense. This was, 
I think, in October, ’65. At the expiration of my brief pa¬ 
role, being satisfied that the fond dream of Confederate in¬ 
dependence was ended forever, I took the simple oath of al¬ 
legiance to the United States, sadly turned my back upon 
the only great thing in my life, and dropped into the un- 
distinguishable mass of “The People.” 

Another matter of a personal nature, which I mention by 
special request, is the post-collegiate history of the DeForest 
gold medal, which I had the honor to take in the class of ’59, 
at Old Yale, and the formative influence it exercised upon my 
after life. 

In 1859, when I took the medal, the die for it had not 
been cast, and the trustees or managers of the fund were 
advised that they were legally compellable to melt up ten 
gold eagles, or, at least, a hundred dollars’ worth of gold, 
in the general form of a medal, and to have engraved upon 


POTPOURRI 


355 


it the legend prescribed in the legal instrument of donation. 
My recollection is the medal was a long time reaching me, 
and when it came it was in this “questionable shape.” I 
carried the lump of gold in my pants pocket for months, 
and as the mighty conflict drew on and I grew more moody 
and unhappy, I walked much alone, and used occasionally 
to shy my golden disc at cats and other objects, until the 
inscription became battered and defaced beyond recognition. 

It was probably after my return from New York in the 
spring of ’61 that one of my uncles, a cotton manufacturer 
from Northern Georgia, was sitting one evening with the 
family in our parlor in New Haven and I was filliping the 
great round piece of yellow metal up to the ceiling, when he 
asked what it was, and I answered: 

“A lump of gold.” 

“Nonsense, Bob,” said Uncle B. “What is it, really ?” 

“It is really a piece of gold, Uncle. If you doubt it, ex¬ 
amine it and see for yourself!”—tossing it to him. 

“Why, I really believe it is gold. How did you come by 
it, boy, and what are you going to do with it ?” 

When I explained, my uncle said: 

“Well, it is certainly good for nothing now as a medal. 
We don’t know what is coming upon us; you’d better let me 
take it South and put it in cotton for you.” 

“All right,” I replied; “only let me first have a piece 
clipped off to make a breast-pin for mother;” which was 
done next morning. The little pin was made, my mother 
wore it for years, my sister has it now and my little daughter 
is to have it. “Uncle B.” took the three-quarter moon of 
gold with him, and I cannot recall ever thinking of it again 
until the fall of 1865, just after I was released from prison. 

I was on the border line of Albemarle and Orange Coun¬ 
ties, Virginia, helping my brother, Randy, to harvest a little 
corn crop, which he had cultivated on shares, after getting 
out of prison in the spring. It was toward the gloaming 
and I was seated on a pile of corn, which we were anxious 
to finish that night. A solitary horseman came riding across 
the open country from the direction of the railroad, evi¬ 
dently an ex-Confederate cavalryman, and as we all, in those 


35^ FOUR YEARS UNDER MARSE ROBERT 

days, seemed to have a sort of intuitive knowledge of each 
other’s whereabouts, I was not surprised when he rode close 
to us, tossing a letter upon the corn pile as he passed, and 
saying: 

“I was at Gordonsville, Bob, and hearing you were in 
these parts, I asked for you at the office. That’s all there 
was.” 

I thanked him and he rode on. When it got too dark to 
work I threw a fodder stalk on the smouldering fire and 
opened my letter. It contained the account of my cotton 
merchant, and not only his account but his check for $350, 
balancing the same. 

It was the one moment of my life when I seemed to be 
possessed of boundless wealth. 

I had on my old Confederate uniform,—indeed these were 
the only clothes I had,—but I walked to the University that 
night and entered the law class next morning, under that 
prince of men and of teachers, John B. Minor. I had no 
resources whatever outside of my little fairy-story fortune, 
and I really do not see how, without it, I could have resumed 
and completed my professional studies. 

I had shared my large capital to some extent with my 
brother, and about the time I began to be seriously troubled 
again with the ever-pressing question of ways and means, 
entering my almost barren room one day after lecture, I 
found on my table an envelope addressed to me and inside of 
it $75 in greenbacks, and—written in a hand with which I 
was not familiar, and entirely without date or signature— 
the words, “From an old friend of your father.” 

About the time this second supply of bread and water the 
ravens had brought was exhausted, at the minimum rate 
of college expenses, another envelope, addressed in the same 
hand, was left in the same place, and inside of it $75 more, 
but not even the scrape of a pen accompanying. I have 
never heard so much as one word that shed any light upon 
the identity of the kind donor, and this aggregate of $150 is 
the only money I owe to-day. 

My sister, Josephine, who, with Mrs. Egerton, procured 
my release from prison, was quite intimate with General 


POTPOURRI 


357 


Lee’s family and a great favorite with the general. She is 
consequently something of an heiress in interesting memen¬ 
toes of him given her by his own hand. 

She has a lock of his hair and one of Traveler’s, a star 
from his coat collar, the wooden inkstand, which he used 
generally in our war, and, if I mistake not, in the Mexican 
War also, and the remains of a pound of tea he gave her, 
asking that we should make tea from it the first time we were 
fortunate enough to have a family reunion. She has also the 
general’s parade hat, or rather she and I have committed 
this to the keeping of the Confederate Museum in Richmond. 
The circumstances connected with this latter gift are strongly 
characteristic. 

My sister had been spending the morning at the general’s 
residence, 707 East Franklin Street, Richmond, Va., sit¬ 
ting most of the time with the ladies of the family in Mrs. 
Lee’s room. The general was preparing for a trip some¬ 
where, and was leisurely packing his trunk, that is, after 
the ladies had done what they could to aid him—and every 
now and then he would enter the room where they were, 
bringing in his hand something which he thought would in¬ 
terest them. In one of these incursions he brought a wide- 
brimmed drab or gray-brown felt hat, saying: 

“Miss Josie, has your father a good hat?” 

My sister replied that she really did not know, as we had 
not seen him for some time. 

“Well,” said the general, “I have two good hats, and I 
don’t think a good rebel ought to have two good articles of 
one kind in these hard times. This was my dress-parade 
hat. Take it, please, and if your father has not a good hat, 
give him this one from me.” 

Father would not wear the hat, deeming it too sacred a 
thing for common use; but after the general’s death, by per¬ 
mission of his daughters, who were present, I wore it at two 
of our great Confederate reunions, with my dear old Con¬ 
federate jacket, and I need scarcely say was the object of 
more intense interest than ever in my life, before or since. I 
made bold, too, to have my photograph taken with the hat 
on —of course, the jacket, also,—as a sort of heirloom for 
my family. 


CHAPTER XXVI 


ANALYSIS OF THE SOLDIER-LIFE 

My story is told. If it has failed to interest and to stir 
you deeply, the fault is in the telling. And yet I cannot but 
hope that, in spite of feeble and inadequate portrayal, the 
great outlines of the picture have so impressed themselves 
upon you that you are ready to admit the life of Marse 
Robert’s boys, from ’61 to ’65, to have been a higher and 
greater life than you had imagined. 

It would seem as if this must be so, if you have credited 
the writer with a fair average of intelligence and conscien¬ 
tiousness. I can well understand, however, that, without 
reflecting upon me in any offensive sense, some of those who 
have done me the honor to read these reminiscences may feel 
that I have unconsciously and very naturally idealized my 
comrades of the long ago and the vivid life we lived to¬ 
gether in our golden youth. 

It is difficult to meet such a suggestion. I believe the 
strongest and most satisfactory way to meet it and, at the 
same time, the fittest way to end this book, will be to close 
with an analysis of the Soldier-Life, from which it will ap¬ 
pear how natural and normal it is, that elements and forces, 
such as characterize that life, should produce men and deeds 
and scenes and incidents such as I have endeavored to por¬ 
tray in the foregoing pages. 

It is also, just now, specially to be desired that the essen¬ 
tial character and training of the military life should be bet¬ 
ter and more generally understood. However we may differ 
as to the advisability of the new career of foreign compli¬ 
cation and conquest upon which this country seems to have 
entered, and which has resulted and must necessarily result 
in such an expansion of its military establishment, yet we 


ANALYSIS OF THE SOLDIER-LIFE 


359 


must all agree that it is well the growing multitudes of 
young men who are entering and to enter the military serv¬ 
ice should have high and clear conceptions of that great life 
to which they have devoted themselves—a life, by the way, 
which, notwithstanding the horrors that often attended it, 
grew upon me every day I lived it; and to which, if the war 
had resulted in the establishment of the Southern Confed¬ 
eracy, I should have consecrated myself with whole-hearted 
devotion. 

It will not be forgotten that I claim for the Army of 
Northern Virginia some peculiar characteristics, as well as 
a fuller and finer development of the soldierly character in 
general, because of the circumstances under which that army 
fought, and especially the leader, whose banner it followed; 
but, after all, the heroic story I have told is in no small de¬ 
gree the normal product and outcome of a grand system of 
physical, mental and moral training, which has been little 
understood and grossly misconceived and misrepresented. 

What, then, is the training and what are the formative ele¬ 
ments and forces of the Soldier-Life? I answer: 


The essential character of the Soldier-Life is “Service;” 

Its every employment, its all-pervading law, is “Duty;” 

Its first lesson—Obedience unquestioning; 

Its last lesson—Command unquestioned; 

Its daily discipline—Accountability unceasing; 

Its final burden—Responsibility unmeasured; 

Its every-day experience—Hardships, Perils, Crises un¬ 
paralleled ; 

Its social atmosphere—Freedom from Social Shams; 

Its compensation—Fixed pay; 

Its inspiration—Promotion from Above. 

If you have measured these elements as I have mentioned 
them, there can be little need of elaboration or of argu¬ 
ment. The compact analysis makes ample impression at 


360 FOUR YEARS UNDER MARSE ROBERT 

once of theoretical soundness and of practical power. Be¬ 
yond a doubt these are the essential elements and forces of 
the military life; they are such as must of necessity be un¬ 
ceasingly operative, and their influence in the development of 
character can scarcely be exaggerated. Let us briefly con¬ 
sider them. 

The essential character of the soldier-life is “Service.” 

Can this be questioned ? When a man enters the military 
profession, whether as an officer or a private soldier, by 
that very act he is cut off from the pursuit of his personal 
aims and purposes and devoted to the service of his country. 
Thereafter he has no home, no farm, no workshop, no busi¬ 
ness. He knows no self-directed future, attempts nothing, 
expects nothing, for himself. Every man outside the army 
regards him, and he regards himself, as a man relieved, sep¬ 
arated from the entanglements and opportunities of the busi¬ 
ness world, and consecrated to a service which may at any 
time demand the sacrifice even of his life. Our English Bible, 
upon this, as upon so many practical phases of our human 
experience, rings wondrous true. Wrote the great apostle: 
“No man that warreth entangleth himself with the affairs 
of this life; that he may please him who hath chosen him 
to be a soldier.” 

The keynote which inspires and dominates and regulates 
all this life of “Service” is the single, simple majestic law 
of “Duty.” No employment of the soldier is too trivial and 
none too great to be included in this all-embracing term 
and regulated by this all-pervading law. 

Descriptive names and phrases express and impress con¬ 
ceptions, and thus frequently constitute a sort of connecting 
link between causes and effects, principles and results. 
“Service;” “the service;” “entered the service;” “discharged 
from the service;” “promoted for gallant and meritorious 
service:” “Duty;” “on duty;” “off duty;” “present for 
duty;” “absent from duty;” “shot to death for absence from 
duty”—how many times, during the four years from ’61 
to ’65, do you suppose I read, wrote, uttered, heard these 
and kindred expressions ? Is it not clear that, by his every¬ 
day’s experience and intercourse, this one great figure—his 


ANALYSIS OF THE SOLDIER-LIFE 361 

life a “service,” its employment “duty”—is burned in upon 
the soldier’s soul ? 

In the light of these principles, and of his lifelong train¬ 
ing, we gain a new conception of that sublime sentence in 
General Lee’s letter to his son, “Duty is the sublimest word 
in the English languageand of that groan of his mighty 
soul in the crisis and agony of defeat, “It is my duty to live.” 

The first lesson of the soldier-life is unquestioning 
Obedience. 

No one will deny the justness of the analysis here. Un¬ 
deniably, the first lesson of the soldier’s life, logically and 
chronologically, is obedience. There is no department, no 
business, no station, in which instant, implicit, blindfold 
obedience is so vital to safety and success, or enforced by 
such terrible sanctions. In military matters hesitation is 
disobedience, disobedience is mutiny, mutiny is death. 

The principle of the soldier’s obedience is the principle 
of obedience, a principle very little understood and very 
much contemned in this day and land. It is this: authority 
is to be obeyed, not because it commands what is right, but 
because it has the right to command. One under rightful 
authority is therefore absolved from responsibility as to the 
policy or propriety or consequences of the command; his sole 
dignity, as well as duty, is to obey with unquestioning alac¬ 
rity. This principle is not palatable to the republican sover¬ 
eigns of this country, yet it is a principle notwithstanding— 
not exclusive, nor of universal application, but it has its 
place, and, in its place, is of vital importance. It is the 
principle on which God governs the world, the father his 
family, the soldier his subordinates; and it has other, many 
other, applications. 

Its direct antagonism is “higher law,” that is, a law high¬ 
er than the commands of rightful authority; in other 
words, authority is to be obeyed, not because it has the right 
to command, but because it commands what is right. This 
principle, too, has its applications, but it is not applicable 
to a subordinate under rightful authority. The harmony 
between the two is found, I think, in a limitation upon the 
principle of obedience. We pass from the law of obedience 


362 


FOUR YEARS UNDER MARSE ROBERT 


to the higher law when, but only when, the command is so 
palpably and grossly wrong that the authority can no lon¬ 
ger be rightful and subjection to it no longer endured. This 
is the right of revolution , and is applicable by way of ex¬ 
ception to every human relation and authority. 

The soldier, however, has very little sympathy with the 
right of revolution, or any modification of or exception to 
the law of unquestioning obedience. His theory and practice 
in this regard find apt illustration in the reply of General 
Jackson to the brigade commander, who gave excellent rea¬ 
sons for having modified the order of march: “Sir, you 
should have obeyed the order first and reasoned about it 
afterwards. Consider yourself under arrest.” 

The last lesson of the soldier-life is unquestioned Com¬ 
mand. 

This analysis of the life and its lessons is not original 
with me; it is at least nineteen hundred years old, and rests 
on the authority of one who was a superb development of the 
most military nation of history, that grand old Roman cen¬ 
turion whose interview with the Son of God is perhaps the 
most striking of the Gospel narratives. Said he: “I also am 
a man set under authority, having under me soldiers, and I 
say unto one, Go, and he goeth; and to another, Come, and 
he cometh.” Here are the two great correlative lessons of 
the life, obedience and command, and both are absolute. 
This is the soldier, not ashamed to obey, not afraid to com¬ 
mand; knowing how to render, and thus learning how to 
exact, obedience. 

The daily lesson of the life is unceasing Accountability. 

The soldier breathes, as it were, an atmosphere of ac¬ 
countability. His daily routine is made up of inspections 
and reports. What he is, what he has, what he does, his 
person, his possessions, his conduct, are constantly passing 
under a scrutiny so searching that nothing escapes, however 
trivial, and all must conform to unvarying “Regulations.” 
This is perhaps the most prominent and impressive feature 
of the life. I need not enlarge upon it. The fact is patent— 
can its influence be doubted ? Apart now from your impres- 


ANALYSIS OF THE SOLDIER-LIFE 


363 


sion as to what the soldier is, what ought he to be as the re¬ 
sult of such training ? Can you conceive of anything tend¬ 
ing more to develop regularity, reliability, promptness, ac¬ 
curacy, even in the smallest details ? 

In the upper grades of the soldier-life, mark how this 
accountability is retained and developed into Responsibility, 
which, in the case of the commander-in-chief, becomes ab¬ 
solutely awful, unmeasured and unmeasurable. 

Responsibility! I had almost said no other human being 
can have any adequate conception of the meaning of the 
term. Responsible for what? For the lives of his follow¬ 
ers, for the future of their bereft families; but it is not life or 
death, not victory or defeat alone, that trembles in the bal¬ 
ance of his battles. It is the life and honor of his country, 
the weal or woe of millions yet to be. He orders the charge, 
and liberty and destiny and history flicker in the gleam of his 
bayonets. 

The experiences of the life are unparalleled Hardships, 
Perils, Crises. 

It would be superfluous to enlarge upon these, the most 
external and palpable features of a soldier’s life, so shortly 
after a war which has overspread a continent and filled a 
land with veterans. Nor will we stay to prove what no one 
will deny, that robustness of character, dauntless determina¬ 
tion, courage that saves from, if it does not hide, a multitude 
of sins, and a composure and balance of soul that no ex¬ 
citement can disturb, no terror overwhelm, are the legitimate 
fruits of the soldier training. 

The social atmosphere of the soldier-life is Freedom from 
Social Shams. 

The unconventionality and candor of student life are pro¬ 
verbial, and yet, though I stepped from the hearty, ideal 
student life of Old Yale into the ranks of the Confederate 
soldiery, it was not long before I felt that I had never before 
realized how unstudied, unconventional, and absolutely sin¬ 
cere human life could be. It was almost startling, the de¬ 
gree to which I knew other men, my comrades, and felt that 
1 was known by them. All the little shams, insincerities, and 


364 


FOUR YEARS UNDER MARSE ROBERT 


concealments of ordinary society disappeared; until, for the 
first time in our lives, we seemed to be stripped bare of the 
disguises under which we had theretofore been accustomed 
to hide our real characters, not only from the world in gen¬ 
eral and from out most intimate associates and companions, 
but even from ourselves. 

It was this which imparted to the religious life of the 
army a power and thrill unattainable, even unapproachable, 
in ordinary life. So close did men get to each other that I 
experienced no difficulty and no embarrassment in convers¬ 
ing with every man in the company on the subject of per¬ 
sonal religion, and in these conferences have often felt that 
I was playing upon a naked human soul, between whom and 
myself there was absolutely no barrier and no screen. It was 
an experience thrilling and tremendous indeed. In view of 
it, I have more than once remarked that if my Maker should 
reveal to me that I had but a short time to live, and should 
permit me to choose a position in which I could accomplish 
most for the regeneration of my fellow-men, I should un¬ 
hesitatingly say, “Let me be an officer in an army, in a time 
of active service.” 

The compensation of the soldier-life is Fixed pay. 

The importance and influence of this feature cannot be 
estimated until you have answered this question: What is 
the most demoralizing of all human desires and pursuits? 
I know not how you will better answer than in the words 
of Holy Writ; for the wisdom of God has embodied the 
answer in a proverb, “The love of money is the root of all 
evil.” And the context is most impressive! “They that 
will be rich fall into temptation and a snare, and into many 
foolish and hurtful lusts, which drown men in destruction 
and perdition.” A proposition thus enunciated needs no en¬ 
forcement, and no one will contend that this terrific indict¬ 
ment is less true or less applicable to-day than when the 
noble apostle warned his “son Timothy” against this the 
greatest of all the lures of the tempter. And, so surely as 
opportunity makes temptation, the soldier, looking securely 
to his sufficient but fixed compensation, having his undivided 
services demanded and paid for by his country, and being 


ANALYSIS OF THE SOLDIER-LIFE 


36S 


consequently unable to devote himself to any lucrative em¬ 
ployment, must be in great measure protected against the 
debasing passion of avarice. 

The inspiration of the life is Promotion from Above. 

Evidently the soldier’s compensation is not the inspiration 
of his calling; and it is perhaps more true of him than of any 
other man that his chief inspiration is honorable advance¬ 
ment in his profession. Call it love of glory, if you please; 
even at that it is almost infinitely more elevating and en¬ 
nobling than love of money, which is the ruling motive of 
much the larger part of mankind, certainly in this age and 
land. But the soldier does not call it love of glory. He 
is no moral philosopher or theorist; he is a practical man, 
and his inspiration, that of which he talks and dreams, that 
for which he serves and strives, is all embodied in one word 
— promotion. This is “the life of the service.” So peculiarly 
true is this that the soldier’s progress has well nigh appro¬ 
priated the term “promotion,” as the soldier’s life has ap¬ 
propriated the title “service.” 

But it is not the desire for promotion, however inspiring, 
to which I wished chiefly to ask your attention, but rather 
the peculiar law of military promotion, namely, that it is 
promotion from above. Before you estimate the importance 
of this feature, let me ask you another question: What is 
the second great demoralizing influence of our age, and 
particularly of our country? I have not here the Word of 
God for answer; but in these days of unblushing demagog- 
ism I am sure of your concurrence when I say, it is flattery 
and service of the mob, cowardly concession to it, in order 
to secure promotion from below. I mean no reflection upon 
the right or principle of suffrage; but the practice of suf¬ 
frage, and the means commonly resorted to to control it 
for personal ends, are at once a menace to free government 
and a degradation of the candidate and the voter. No hon¬ 
est man can now pass through a political contest without 
being disgusted, if happily he be not also surprised, at the 
means employed against him. 

The true soldier knows nothing of such contests or influ¬ 
ences. He never dreams of promotion by any other power 


366 FOUR YEARS UNDER MARSE ROBERT 

than that of his superiors, or on any other ground than gal¬ 
lant and meritorious service. No! the soldier’s principle, the 
soldier’s inspiration, is promotion from above, and it cuts 
off a world of temptation and demoralization thus to lift 
a man’s eyes and efforts up for personal elevation and ad¬ 
vancement. 

We have finished our review of the root forces of the Sol¬ 
dier-Life. Where will you find principles of greater power 
for the development of character? 

Is it objected that the soldier, as we see him in actual 
life to-day, fails to exhibit any close conformity to these 
elevated principles and lofty ideals? I answer that the like 
failure marks the embodiment among men of the principles 
and ideals of every lofty life—even of our holy religion. 
But balanced men do not on this ground question either the 
truth and beauty of these principles and ideals, or the sin¬ 
cere adoption of them by the followers of the Christ, or 
their moulding influence for good upon those who adopt 
them. 

Is it objected further that, only the highest class of re¬ 
cruits could be expected to appreciate the philosophy of such 
a system? True, but the same is true of every high voca¬ 
tion—that only a few choice souls thoroughly grasp the 
inner philosophy, the root principles, the formative forces 
of the calling to which they have devoted their lives. But 
it is also true that intellectual appreciation, however much 
to be desired, is not indispensable to the operation and the 
moulding power of formative forces such as we have dis¬ 
cussed. A young man who enters the military service and is 
subjected to its discipline and training may not have intel¬ 
lectual life and interest enough even to inquire what it is 
that is making a new man of him; notwithstanding, being 
compelled to conform his conduct to the regulations and to 
live the strenuous life we have just sketched, new habits 
will gradually be formed and the new man will unconsciously 
be made. 

A touching and beautiful illustration of the justness of 
this soldier analysis, and the character-moulding power of 
its principles, occurred the first time I made use of it in pub- 


ANALYSIS OF THE SOLDIER-LIFE 


367 


lie speech, applying it in that instance to a great soldier of 
the Confederacy, and showing how the mould prefigured the 
man. At the close of the address the son of another and 
one of the very greatest of our Confederate leaders, who 
had fallen in battle early in the war, pressed his way to my 
side, saying, with the deepest feeling: “Major, you have, in 
a very just sense, introduced my own father to me to-day. 
I have always admired the majestic outline of his perfect 
manhood, but never until I heard you just now have I real¬ 
ized where his qualities came from, nor sympathized, as I 
should have done, with my father’s almost passionate love 
and reverence for his profession. It is all clear to me now.” 

I am not a blind enthusiast. I admit that the almost en¬ 
forced idleness of the camp in time of peace, the absence of 
women and children and the lack of other refining and ele¬ 
vating influence of home, are blemishes in the life of the 
soldier. Nevertheless, I think we may, in the light of our 
analysis, begin to comprehend why great soldiers—Sir 
Philip Sidney, Henry Havelock, Hedley Vicars, Chinese 
Gordon, Stonewall Jackson, Robert Lee—have exhibited an 
almost unrivaled elevation, strength, and perfection of char¬ 
acter, both as men and as Christians. The late Dr. T. De 
Witt Talmage never penned a truer or a stronger paragraph 
than the following: 

“The sword has developed the grandest natures that the 
world ever saw. It has developed courage—that sublime 
energy of the soul which defies the universe when it feels it¬ 
self to be in the right. It has developed a self-sacrifice 
which repudiates the idea that our life is worth more than 
anything else, when for a principle it throws that life away, 
as much as to say, Tt is not necessary that I live, but it is 
necessary that righteousness triumph.’ There are thousands 
among the Northern and Southern veterans of our Civil 
War who are ninety-five per cent, larger and mightier in soul 
than they would have been had they not, during the four 
years of national agony, turned their back on home and for¬ 
tune, and at the front sacrificed all for a principle.” 

In the light of all this, we begin also to understand why 
the writers of the Sacred Canon make use of the life of the 


/ t tils! 

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A 

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368 FOUR YEARS UNDER MARSE ROBERT 

soldier more frequently perhaps than of any other, as a 
figure of the Christian life. Nor can it do harm in this 
connection to note that when the Son of God “marveled” at 
a Roman soldier’s faith, pronouncing it the greatest he had 
found on earth, the man himself traced this faith to the 
teachings of his military life, saying substantially, with us— 
I have learned as a soldier the two great lessons of subjection 
and supremacy, of obedience and command; do you but 
issue the order, “Speak the word only, and my servant shall 
be healed.” 






















































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































